Here Raizel Robin explores the changing trend of employer driven workplace wellness programs. It seems more and more employers are fully understanding that by investing in their staff now they are saving masses of money long term – $4-$6 dollars per $1 invested!

The nature of work has changed dramatically over the last half century. “Knowledge workers,” a term first coined by business philosopher Peter Drucker in the 1950s, have replaced industrial labourers as the backbone of most corporations. In his seminal book, Landmarks of Tomorrow, Drucker used the term mostly to describe IT personnel, such as programmers, systems analysts, technical writers and researchers. Today, it can refer to just about anyone using a university degree at work, including financial analysts, lawyers and scientists. Knowledge workers now permeate every industry. No company is without them. They give businesses a competitive edge and are key to a healthy, productive economy.

Yet the changing nature of work is making many of them sick. While the corporate world spent 50 years developing exercise, benefit and insurance programs geared to the occupational health and safety of industrial employees–programs that are still in place today–experts say the well-being of knowledge workers is suffering. Sure, their jobs are different from factory work–but they can be just as physically strenuous, contributing to illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, and nervous disorders like anxiety and depression. The symptoms are not as obvious, say, as a broken leg, but they can be just as costly. Mental illness in Canada alone costs $8 billion annually in lost productivity, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. Heart disease costs about $5 billion a year in lost productivity and disability. Recent research shows that knowledge workers are more stressed out than any other type of employee–and if their minds and bodies aren’t working properly, neither do they.

The average Canadian spends more than half of his or her waking hours at work–and half say they frequently toil on evenings and weekends. Days lost to illness or disability, meanwhile, have climbed each year since 2000, when a wave of downsizing began and those who still had jobs were forced to work longer hours with fewer resources. More than half of the Fortune 500 firms that downsized in the 1990s (there were about 1,468 of them) reported that productivity deteriorated as a result. If companies value their employees as key assets, say human-resources specialists, it’s essential they encourage them to stay mentally and physically healthy.

Just like keeping manufacturing equipment in top working order, employee health has a tremendous impact on the bottom line. B.C. Hydro, for instance, reports that the return on investment of its employee wellness program is $3 to $4 for every dollar invested. That’s a common result for many wellness programs, which have been expanding significantly in recent years. But some, such as Canada Life’s, get up to $6 back. The savings come from reduced absenteeism and fewer extended health benefits and disability payouts.

Keeping workers happy and healthy is not a new concept. In the 1940s and ’50s, companies encouraged social clubs and organized outings and picnics. By the ’70s and ’80s, however, the strategy had shifted to individual fitness and smoking-cessation programs. In the ’90s, the likes of workplace spirituality, motivational speakers and on-site yoga became the rage. Today, you could say the hottest trend is capitalizing on a little bit of them all under the banner of “workplace wellness.” Non-smoking support groups, company gyms, family-friendly workplaces, counselling, meditation, workshops in stress management and effective communication techniques, even personal coaches for CEOs–all of them fall under the catch-all phrase. Most programs focus on physical fitness and nutrition, though that, too, is changing. “There is a shift happening,” says Karen Seward, vice-president of marketing, business development and research at Warren Shepell, a Toronto-based national employee-assistance program provider and consulting firm. “People have made the link between mental health and productivity and absenteeism–and the whole notion that people who are happy at home and happy at work are more productive in the workplace.”

There’s no shortage of companies catching on. MDS Nordion, Steelcase, Canada Life, Royal Bank, Enbridge Inc., Rogers Communications (which owns Canadian Business)–most big corporations have wellness initiatives of some sort. “Business today is a stressful environment,” says George Cope, president and CEO of Toronto-based Telus Mobility. “I think healthy employees become part of a good overall business strategy.” A few programs, such as Dofasco’s (see “Taking care of business,” p. 133), have even won awards.

Most forward-thinking executives probably see the benefits, but the quality of wellness programs, and how often employees use them, are crucial to their effectiveness. In a national wellness survey of Canadian companies released in September by workplace wellness consulting firm Buffett Taylor & Associates of Whitby, Ont., 83.4% of respondents said their company offered at least one “wellness initiative,” such as stress management techniques, weight-control programs, fitness incentives or nutrition awareness. That’s a huge increase from 64% back in 2000, when economic times were much better.

The jump shows companies are taking wellness seriously enough to ensure they provide assistance even when times are tough. But the majority are not currently offering comprehensive programs. Feeling the pressure to implement wellness initiatives, but often constrained by tight budgets, some even count extended health-care benefits as wellness, according to Warren Shepell’s Seward. Though comprehensive programs are catching on, the numbers show there are barriers to their effectiveness. Despite corporate efforts, one in three workers reports being stressed out due to excessive work demands and long hours, according to Statistics Canada. A survey by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada reported in 2000 that 43% of Canadians feel overwhelmed by their job, finances or family. Beverly Beuermann-King is a wellness consultant in Little Britain, Ont., with 13 years’ experience. “Pessimism, dissatisfaction, lowered concentration, decreased motivation, accidents, absenteeism and poor health are all symptoms of job stress,” she says.

A worn-out, unhealthy workforce is a costly one. The Conference Board of Canada estimates difficulties employees have in balancing work with family life cost employers in this country $2.7 billion annually. Meanwhile, workplace stress and stress-related illnesses cost the economy about $5 billion a year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Psychiatrist Edgardo Perez, CEO of Homewood Health Centre, an employee assistance provider in Guelph, Ont., studies the effects of depression in the workplace and has found that up to 10% of employees at any given time will have moderate symptoms of depression or anxiety. Depressed workers may feel constant fatigue and worthlessness, he says. They may feel like failures, exhibit a loss of interest in their usual activities and withdraw from social situations. As well, they may be reluctant to work collaboratively. Anxious employees may also be irritable, have irrational fears of death and feel cut off from reality. “All of this interferes with their ability to concentrate and be productive,” says Perez, who has found the problem can diminish an employee’s productive work time by 20%.

According to Perez, depression costs the Canadian economy $12 billion a year. About $6.6 billion of that is due to productivity issues, and the rest is eaten up through the cost of medication and care. It’s enough of a problem that several prominent Canadian business leaders decided to form the Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health, which calls depression an “unheralded business crisis in Canada.”

But some companies are trying to turn the tide. Take B.C. Hydro, for instance. Its Lifestyle Program (see “Healthy idea,” page 131) awards points to employees for doing any wellness activity, which can include working out at the on-site gym, spending time with family or even keeping a journal or meditating. Points can be redeemed for T-shirts, water bottles, baseball caps and other fitness gear, but are mainly a way to monitor the program’s effectiveness. The employees who participate in the Lifestyle Program take, on average, two fewer sick days a year than employees who don’t.

MDS Nordion, a company in Kanata, Ont., that provides most of the world’s supply of radioisotopes used in nuclear medicine, implemented a wellness program that goes beyond health. It also studies how work is done and the amount of control given to employees. Since 1993, absenteeism has declined to four days per person a year from an average of five and a half.