Companies large and small seem to be reaching the same conclusion. Even as hard times have forced them to trim some employee benefits, corporate fitness programs have survived mostly unscathed and have expanded in many cases.
The number of companies with 20,000 or more employees that provided fitness centers, subsidies or discounts grew by 11 percent from a year earlier, according to a 2010 national survey by Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. Another survey, by the Society for Human Resource Management, shows that the proportion of companies offering gym benefits has held steady since 2007. During the same period, many employers were paring retirement and other financial benefits because of the recession.
The reason, according to many studies, is that wellness benefits provided in the workplace yield more productive employees who require less health care. That translates into savings on health insurance for companies and workers.
“It’s not just the employer saying, ‘We’re going to do this for you out of the goodness of our hearts,’ ” said Paul Fronstin, director of health research programs for the independent Employee Benefit Research Institute. “They’re hoping to get something out of it. And that something is [the health] of this employee, who’s not just more productive, but uses less health care.”
A 2010 Harvard Business Review article found that wellness programs, of which fitness is a component, can return as much as six times their cost to the companies that sponsor them. Another 2010 review by a separate team of Harvard researchers, published in the journal Health Affairs, concluded that “medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs and that absenteeism costs fall by about $2.73 for every dollar spent.”
But that sentiment is not universal. Skeptics have long worried that employees already inclined toward a healthy lifestyle are the ones who take advantage of benefits such as fitness classes, which, if true, would limit their effectiveness for the workers who need them most.
The Congressional Budget Office remains uncertain that research has proven the value of wellness programs. “Evidence regarding the effect of wellness services on subsequent spending on health care is limited, and CBO is continuing to evaluate the evidence that does exist,” Director Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote to then-Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) in 2009.
Research also has found that small companies are much less likely, or able, to offer fitness programs and other wellness benefits.
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