Workplace wellness programs began in the 1970s.
According to the Center for Health Affairs, worksite wellness programs have become increasingly popular over the past decades. There are several reasons for this: one of the strongest factors was the stance of businesses when they realized they could increase productivity by creating wellness programs, according to "The History and Impact of Worksite Wellness" by Jennifer Reardon. The health care industry also had its part to play, as did government decisions and overall trends in common culture. Today, most large companies have some type of worksite wellness program.
Definition
According to the Center for Health Affairs, worksite wellness programs are designed to help employees improve their health and continue healthy lifestyles. This includes not only at-work exercise options, but a wide variety of care and treatment options for mental and emotional health, including healthy food, massage options, consultations and therapy. Businesses create these wellness programs to increase employee happiness and productivity, and wellness packages are now considered an important part of employee benefits.
Benefits
The roots of worksite wellness began in the 1970s when several movements combined. One movement, which began in the 1970s and continued to build in the 1980s and 1990s was cost control development, according to Reardon's article. Businesses began using increasingly complicated methods to analyze productivity and ways to increase efficiency, especially employee efficiency. One method, foisted upon businesses by outside sources, was worksite wellness programs.
Growth
The Worksite Health Promotion Movement, known as WHP, was a movement in the late 1970s that sought to link employee health to a variety of factors, including environmental causes, according tot he Center for Health Affairs. WHP encouraged businesses to think of employee health as something that could be fostered and grown in the workplace rather then solved with health insurance programs alone. This fit in well with the new cost control development strategies that businesses were busy creating. The Occupational Safety and Health movement of the 1970s also helped raise awareness of the importance of employee work conditions, according to Reardon.
Popular Culture
Another important movement took place in the mid-1980s and 1990s in the American culture as a whole. Americans began to become very interested in health, not only as the prevention of disease but as an entire lifestyle complete with proper nutrition and exercise, according to Reardon. According to Chant, these changes were due, in part, to increasing awareness of obesity problems and related chronic conditions such as heart disease and high cholesterol.
Models
By the 2000s, many companies were offering wellness programs based on several different popular models. Some offered discounts or free membership at local gyms. Others offered smoking cessation programs or nutrition coaching. Some brought in experts and consults or created on-site gyms for employees to use. According to the Center for Health Affairs, by 2008 about 88 percent of large companies (those with more than 200 employees) and about half of small companies (those with three to 199 workers) offered wellness programs.
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