When we hear about corporate or employee wellness programs, we typically think about on site gyms, health fairs, healthy food choices in the cafeteria and health insurance discounts for participation. But many of these choices are not possible for small businesses. Establishing an on site gym for five employees is cost prohibitive for most businesses. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation about 59% of small businesses with three to nine employees offer health insurance. Most likely, thoughts of health and wellness stop once the health insurance premiums are paid. And for the other 41% of small businesses who do not offer health insurance - wellness may not even be on the radar.
There are many definitions of wellness programs that are rife with corporate jargon, but the core of any wellness program is:
"To Promote Healthy Lifestyles"
When you work in a small business you want to work with healthy co-workers. Small teams depend on each other so when one out of five people is sick then 20% of the work force is missing. If twenty percent of Home Depot's employees didn't go to work today that would be 64,000 of their 321,000 employees!
Small businesses have every reason to be interested in promoting healthy lifestyles to their employees. Not only to reduce absenteeism, but to improve morale, comraderie, communication and to show that they cares about their employees.
At Home Health Testing, we believe in healthy lifestyles and are beginning a series on our blog called "Small Business Wellness Programs". We will highlight the initiatives that small businesses have taken to promote healthy lifestyles. We will share ideas from our own workplace and share stories from other small businesses - we want to hear from you! If you work in a small business and have programs that you feel "promote healthy lifestyles", please contact us. For the first small business chosen in our blog series, we will give you a free cholesterol test for every employee!