Kirk Keller of Two Medicine Health & Financial Fitness was fielding a question about workforce wellness this fall from a Cody employer who asked, "You mean to tell me that if we don't do anything, it's going to cost us?"

"Yeah, it's going to cost you," replied Keller, a certified wellness program manager. He explained that the cost of doing nothing likely will mean that risk factors will increase for employees - and with them will increase health insurance costs, loss of productivity, absenteeism and use of sick leave, even workers' compensation costs.

So having a healthy workforce isn't only a nice idea, it can help employers reduce their costs and boost their bottom lines. Keller has been stressing that idea in workforce wellness workshops sponsored by the Wyoming Department of Health across the state this fall, with more scheduled next February.

His focus is on showing employers how a company approach to wellness or prevention can reduce a variety of costs and result in a healthier, more productive workforce.

"Each of these single risks will impact your (health insurance) plan cost, and its impacting them at a greater percentage than we ever, ever thought possible," Keller said at a workshop in Cheyenne in November. "The more health risks, the more they are going to cost you."



Costs and benefits

But those other hidden costs add up, too.

"What I'm trying to do is give you some ammunition to go back and say, 'we've got some employees that are at risk and we think it's costing us in our health plan costs. But it's also costing us in work comp, it's costing us productivity, absenteeism, etc.'"

The other benefits to establishing workforce wellness plans in business may be harder to quantify right away, but healthy workers generally are more productive and loyal, and many employers will see a return on their investment, he said.

"We've got an opportunity as employers to help guide or steer our consumers (employees) into the right resources to use at the right time to make the right decisions about their health," he told workshop participants.

In a follow up interview, Keller noted how research has helped wellness experts understand the dynamics of building healthier workforces and show employers cost benefits and returns on investments.

"The costs, the impacts, go way beyond the borders of wellness," he told the Business Report. "We can talk productivity, we can talk absenteeism, we can talk workers' compensation costs.

"Every one of these health components has an economic piece, and we've got to capture that if we want to impact long term the health and productivity of our workforce," he added.



Promoting healthier lives

The same is true when it comes to getting people to change their behavior to live healthier lives. Research is showing that positive incentives and reinforcements can help with lifestyle changes that can be measured over time.

"When we start to carve out those opportunities to reward accordingly and people make conscious, elective behavior changes, that is exciting, because it really begins to start to fit into a proactive business model now," Keller said.

Dave Ivestor, who heads the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program (DPCP) in the Health Department and has been instrumental in organizing the department's two statewide Workforce Wellness Summits, said the first step is to show employers how they can benefit.

"Sometimes there's a little bit of confusion in the fine line between health and wellness," he said. "Employers view that they're investing in their employees' health by covering them with health insurance, but that's a whole different issue than investing in wellness." Employers need to get their minds wrapped around investing in wellness."

Added Keller: "Just because an employer sponsors a health plan doesn't produce healthy employees."


Rewarding low-risk workers

Keller said the wellness industry is maturing and convincing employers that it is more cost- effective to keep healthy employees healthy instead of spending most of the money on "the super sick" who already have costly conditions.

He said he is excited by the move toward proactive, preventive programs that are "rewarding the conscious behavior of their employees and identifying the low-risk and giving them reason to stay low risk instead of being so centered on always treating the super sick."

"What we want to do is reward those low-risk people," he said. "That's where the money is best spent."

A good way to do that, he added, is through incentives. "That's the language that our consumers clearly understand. Incentives are all around us."