
Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not - brandonb
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/upshot/do-workplace-wellness-programs-work-usually-not.html?abt=0002&abg=0&_r=0
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dreamweapon
Just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for
vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind,
a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to
cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. That's all I need for "wellness."

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shouldbeworking
Quit giving staff delicious unhealthy food.

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dreamweapon
Yeah. It's amazing how many companies with "wellness" polices also happen to
have the most cafeterias and kitchens (when they have them).

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click170
Can we agree that it's not the having of a kitchen or cafeteria, but what they
stock it with that is the problem?

I would relish a kitchen or cafeteria stocked with delicious and wholesome
food.

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buckbova
> Medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness
> programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . .

The question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth
the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

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tfederman
I wonder if the PepsiCo Healthy Living program directed people to consume
fewer PepsiCo products. It seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

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raisedbyninjas
Not directly. It promotes exercise, quitting smoking, etc. The extent of their
healthy product endeavor is reducing salt, sugar, trans fats, pushing naked
juice, bottled water, an flavored water products.

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cc438
I've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from
the insurance providers, akin to "honor roll" discounts with car insurance. As
long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$
chopped off your rate.

I get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like
age and marriage status. However, in my limited opinion, there's no way "honor
roll" has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to
achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. Insurance
companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long
that I wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were
founded purely in speculation. This article seems to back that assumption with
hard proof as well.

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slapshot
Large employers are generally self-funded, meaning that they pay their
healthcare claims dollar-for-dollar. Blue Cross (or whomever) serves as a
claims administrator and takes a premium for the service, but may not provide
any actual "insurance" with respect to the company (some have maximum per-year
and maximum per-employee caps to the company but they aren't usually triggered
by the sorts of things that wellness programs address).

Big companies hope that wellness programs really will decrease healthcare
spend and increase morale --- chronic conditions like diabetes and smoking do
have a disproportionate impact on the healthcare bottom line. That said, once-
off specialty conditions (cancer, heart surgery, etc.) have an even bigger
impact and aren't addressed by this.

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YokoZar
The big items are also probabilistic events likely related to a lot of
underlying health circumstances. If cancer or heart surgery can be merely
delayed a year through the wellness program, then that may just be the year
the employee retires or switches jobs and goes onto a different health
insurer.

These things are so incredibly expensive that even a small shift in them could
be worth a considerable amount of dollars per worker. And that's not even
considering productivity benefits (which are in turn so hard to quantify we'll
almost always be talking about gut feelings on this issue.)

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clairity
this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting
"wellness" are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic
motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to
do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started
playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep
me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with
myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people
active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.

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spindritf
Previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260)

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acgourley
What about employee happiness, productivity and stress levels?

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VLM
Anecdotally my coworkers and I find it hyper creepy and don't participate.
Very few people do. I don't actually know anybody who does, despite extremely
heavy promotion such as nearly weekly spam and even physical paper spam sent
to our homes. I'm one of the few people I work with who would auto-qualify
because I exercise during my lunch hour, sorta reasonably healthy, great diet,
but even I won't sign up.

A program like this is almost the definition of a violation of work-life
balance. Way too creepy, big brother is monitoring you. The last thing I want
is an awkward metric on my annual review to verify my prostate is getting a
regular workout and what my employer can do to help out and hows my stamina
now and whatever other totally inappropriate freakishness they think up. The
whole concept is just offensive. Just too many crossed boundaries. I find the
sex analogy to be highly relevant. A happy employee is a productive employee
so we should all be required to document and track our sexual activity with
our boss and have a performance improvement plan as part of our reviews to
make sure we're getting some. Next we can add religion! Ugh.

They offer a wellness clinic in the lunch room about twice a year, free
screenings and free vaccinations. Many people participate, including myself,
the primary reason this isn't creepy is this doesn't involve my boss or HR or
payroll getting involved, no big brother garbage. At least not in public
(maybe there is a secret file on me for each flu vaccination I've gotten,
donno).

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adrr
Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses? And then as an
employee, why don't i get incentives for having healthy blood pressure levels,
perfect cholesterol levels, a normal BMI? Our society is increasing becoming
obese and our health care spending is spiring out of control. Something has to
give. We have a really weird system where employers pay for our healthcare
which is why see these wellness programs which people deem creepy.

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revelation
Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane, if you
consider the recent court cases about _christian_ companies (an oxymoron in
itself) denying to pay for contraception (as part of the health plan, which
contents are increasingly regulated).

This isn't how it works in countries with functioning public healthcare
systems.

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mikestew
> Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane

Because socialism is evil:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#The_rise_of_employer-
sponsored_coverage)

I mean, it's trite but that's what it boiled down to. Truman had the idea of a
an optional, government-backed health plan. Someone trots the magic
"socialism" trigger word, and labor unions settled for employer-provided
health insurance instead. (Though I wonder how Truman's plan would be self-
sustaining if it were optional. We have enough problems financing not-optional
plans.)

