Buffett Workplace Wellness Survey

2006 Results

THEMES
• Wellness is becoming increasingly prevalent
• Stress, work/family life balance, smoking, sedentary lifestyles, high blood pressure and cholesterol remain major health issues

Top three major health risks affecting employees in the organizations

Work-related stress 78.4%
Stress outside the workplace 57.9%
Smoking 42.5%

Critical issues:
Too few respondents are offering programs with either “increase employee retention” (41.8%) or “to attract employees” (25.5%) as a strategic objective. Research shows when the baby boomers leave the workforce in the next five years, there will be a worker shortage.

Top four motivators for offering comprehensive wellness programs
Improve employee morale 74.3%
Enhance organizational culture 62.1%
Lower short and long-term disability costs 60.1%
Improve productivity 56.4%

The top barriers organizations have experienced when implementing wellness programs
Lack of budget resources 58.1%
Lack of staffing 47.8%

• Wellness appears not to be of strategic importance at most organizations and outcomes are too frequently not being evaluated

The majority of organizations are not calculating and recording the return-oninvestment associated with their wellness efforts

Do not calculate ROI 81.4%
Do calculate ROI 18.6%

Very few organizations continuously evaluate and record the outcomes of their wellness efforts

Do not evaluate program success 70.4%
Do evaluate program success 29.6%

Beverly’s Comments:
Buffet Taylor’s 4th Annual Wellness Survey continues to support the results of the Work Smart Live Smart 2006 Wellness Survey in January [see the January 2006 edition of the Path To Wellness] in that many organizations are offering at least one stress and wellness initiative however, most are not presenting a comprehensive wellness strategy. Organizations still must tie their wellness programs to the vision, mission and goals of their company, establish benchmarks and evaluate their success. Only by pulling all of this information together can you show an effective return-on-investment.

Questions

Does your company have a comprehensive wellness strategy?
Is it important to your decision makers?
Are you measuring ROI?

Leave us your comments!