Worker health is paramount for many companies. There is little doubt about that. But are companies right for getting into worker health in everyday life, not just with the safety initiatives on the work site?

Why is it anyone’s business what your workers do with themselves outside of work? As long as they are off the clock, they can engage in whatever behaviors they want, right? Our only responsibility is to ensure that workplace environments don’t contribute negatively to workers’ health.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Kullez via a Creative Commons license]

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Kullez via a Creative Commons license]

While it is true that we can’t force people to change their general bad or unhealthy habits at home, one recent study showed the value of encouraging better life decisions helps overall health of workers on the worksite. This idea can have a couple of different aspects to it, but the underlying one is that your company can show it cares about each individual as an asset to the company and not just another worker bee.  After all, work is just one part of the everyday life of a worker, and much of what a worker does outside of work can have a large influence on that worker’s health and overall well-being while at work.

The study, published recently in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, followed about 2,000 employees of a major company over five years, during which the company presented several employee wellness programs as benefits to their employees. The company’s health and safety record was tracked during these five years, as well as the employee’s overall health and wellness while weight-loss, quit-smoking and on-site fitness initiatives were in place. Over the five-year period of the study – in which the initiatives were available but not mandatory for all workers – across-the-board benefits were found.

First, overall absenteeism decreased and employee productivity increased. In terms of specifics, company healthcare costs went down by more than 20 percent, obesity rates dropped by almost 5 percent on average per year, smoking rates by nearly 10 percent per year, and overall well-being index scores were nearly 14 percent better.

The bottom line here is, if your company puts forth a proactive investment in wellness for employees, that investment will pay for itself in very short order, when your healthcare costs drop and your productivity increases because your workers are at work. Odd, no?

You can see the full study at this link, if you don’t believe me. But remember, I am just the messenger.