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www.ORtrucking.orgIssue 1, 2016
Here are the three types of wellness programs
and characteristics for each:
1. Awareness-oriented
• Provides information and
resources to help employees
learn about healthy lifestyle
choices
• Emphasizes education and
awareness, not actual activity or
behavior
• Tends to be most appealing
to already health-conscious
individuals, so generally
ineffective for reducing health
care costs
2. Activity-oriented
• Combines awareness with
participation in healthy
activities
• Examples: walking programs,
with-loss challenges, discounted/
free gym memberships
• Generally, offers some type of
participation incentive
• Usually leads to some health
care savings, but could take
three or more years to break
even or realize a positive return
on investment
3. Results-oriented
• Focuses on measurable outcomes
and behavior changes achieved
through the program
• Also includes components of
awareness and activity-based
programs
• If paired with strong incentives,
this type has the ability to
produce significant return
on investment through lower
health care costs, decreased
absenteeism and fewer workers’
compensation incidents
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Once you’ve decided on your priorities for your workplace wellness plan, the
next step is developing a specific action plan, to implement the program you’ve
selected.
The action plan should include:
• The overall goals and objectives of your wellness program
• Specific recommendations on strategies to implement (these need to be
clearly stated and measurable)
• The chosen activities
• The staff, resources and materials needed to make it happen
• The time frame for completion
• The evaluation plan to measure results
Wellness affects your company’s bottom line in many ways—we are highlighting
the retention of drivers here, but it can also lower health care costs, lower
workers comp costs, increase productivity, decrease absenteeism and raise
employee morale. Because your drivers spend many of their waking hours at
work, the workplace is an ideal setting to address health and wellness issues.
Making the choice to do something is the first step in building a culture of
health. We know the statistics and how it is impacting our industry. As you
begin to proactively implement a program, engage as many resources as you
can: your insurance broker, healthcare insurer and peers. This is one step to help
keep our drivers living a longer, more productive life.
Authors Dan Petrillo and Adam Harris are commercial insurance agents and run the
trucking program at LaPorte Insurance. They can be contacted at 503-239-4116.