Do Wellness Programmes Work?

People are becoming more aware of the need for proactive wellness initiatives within the workplace - and are putting it in a higher place of importance than ever before.

Not putting a focus on both physical and mental wellness is a costly mistake for companies. If your employees (or the executives) are not performing optimally, it’s difficult for a company as a whole to be succeeding optimally. Essentially, the better the health, the better the turnover.

In an article on Entrepreneur, Jeffrey Hayzlett says that wellness programmes offer five critical benefits to an organisation:

Improved employee health behaviours
Reduced risk of elevated health risks
Reduced healthcare costs
Improved productivity
Decreased absenteeism

The 12-week BBM Pilot, run by Dave Letele and Gareth O’Donnell , showed immediate results for a group of at risk participants. Have a look at the critical insights below.

The blood panels conducted were:

• Fasting Insulin • Lipids Panel

These panels were conducted as primarily health and safety measures to identify high risk individuals within the group as well as key medical markers for improvement. There were eight individuals who were above healthy norms or currently under medical guidance for diabetes.

10 individuals were outside of healthy norms for cholesterol. These individual were advised to report to their doctor for on-going health monitoring as part of the care plan. The high risk individuals were targeted for return blood test upon completion of the course. The results are as shown below: