Company Health & Wellness Initiatives don’t always stir the blood of staff members, even though they’re designed to do just that. How do you get staff members to enroll in Company Health & Wellness Initiatives – and stay enrolled?

The brochures for these programs tout the benefits to staff members and businesses. Employee Health Promotion statistics show that there are tangible benefits. Company Health & Wellness Initiatives actually do save lives by getting workers to take their health seriously.

However, St. Louis, Missouri-based Maritz Inc., the world’s largest incentive company, has applied their own invigorating twist to health management by offering gift rewards to staff members who participate in Company Health & Wellness Initiatives. The gift reward program is Maritz’s own Exclusively Yours® plan. Health management participants earn points, which can be then redeemed for merchandise, electronics, restaurant vouchers and travel, much like a frequent-flier program.

Enrollment incentives in Company Health & Wellness Initiatives?

Undoubtably corporations that don’t work in the incentives industry will be tempted to cry foul about using such a rich carrot to incentivize health program enrollments. Not every company can throw that kind of money at health management resources – and not every company has the built-in cost savings as a business that specializes in offering incentive programs.

For certain rich incentives like Maritz’s will break through the glaze that appears over many staff members’ eyes when they’re encouraged to do something new, different or difficult. For many staff members uncomfortable with health management and physical activity, “new, different and difficult” would apply to Company Health & Wellness Initiatives. So where does that leave businesses who are unwilling or unable to offer incentives for health management program enrollment?

Successful Company Health & Wellness Initiatives motivate staff members – before and after signup

Health management program administrators should keep the long-term view in mind when trying to get staff members to take that critical first step. Even the best incentives can fail in the face of faltering organization, badly-designed Company Health & Wellness Initiatives and wavering support. Make sure to run good Company Health & Wellness surveys before you build your Company Health & Wellness Initiatives so worker input and needs are being met by your Company Health & Wellness Initiatives. The goal is positive outcomes, not high enrollment numbers.

Company Health & Wellness Initiatives cannot survive managerial apathy. If executive and managerial participation is widespread and heartfelt, staff members will follow their leadership. The potential rewards and Company Health & Wellness benefits are clearly worth reaping, for both your employer and your co-workers.

Was Company Health & Wellness on your corporation’s new year’s resolutions list? Here we are a little over midway into the third month of 2008, the time when resolutions start to falter if they haven’t lost momentum completely. Has your Worksite’s wellness resolution fallen by the wayside? If so, there are still ways to get back on track.

One Company Health & Wellness tip comes to us from the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, reported from the Jersey Shore. Rod Shirk, the YMCA’s chief financial officer, participated in the organization’s first executive Company Health & Wellness Initiative, which registered his cholesterol as higher than normal. That prompted him to get a physical, which showed high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that often indicates prostate cancer. The outcome? His doctors caught a life-threatening illness just in time.

All thanks to a single health management program.

So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of Company Health & Wellness Initiatives. He says, “For us here at the YMCA, if we are telling people to be healthy, we had better set a good example for our staff members.”

Company Health & Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs

Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of Company Health & Wellness Initiatives, it isn’t the initial draw for Worksites. They do it to lower medical care costs, and there’s no doubt that Company Health & Wellness Initiatives do just that. Health Promotion Statistics show that Company Health & Wellness Initiatives return anywhere from $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on wellness. “Health care costs should go down as people think about changing their diets and getting more active,” Shirk says.

The Company Health & Wellness savings aren’t just in the Medical Insurance department. Human resource departments report that Company Health & Wellness Initiatives also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

Still, corporations have been loath to invest that elusive Company Health & Wellness dollar despite the well-documented returns. A Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive survey found that only 10% of small- to medium-size businesses have made on-site health screenings – like the one that saved Shirk’s life – available to their staff members.