Fit For Life – Fit For Work
Wellness Initiative
The Silicon Valley Leadership Group presents the Fit For Life – Fit For Work Wellness Initiative to commence in January 2008. Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of our employees while lowering health care costs. The brutal reality is that health care costs are rising 16% every year, there is excessive absenteeism, lower work productivity, and consumers have lower wages due to higher out-of-pocket expenses. Research clearly shows that the smartest investment is in employee health prevention and wellness promotion, as people spend the majority of their waking time at work with an average workweek of 50 hours.
To tackle the challenges we face in our health care system, we propose a solution P.L.A.Y.:
In order to effectively P.L.A.Y., we invite you to participate in our Fit For Life-Fit For Work Initiative. This initiative consists of an active group of representatives from our member companies who serve on our Senior Task Force to share, discuss and learn about employee wellness programs. The most important focus areas for health and wellness programs that provide measurable results include:
What do I get out of participating?
- Networking and Learning
As part of this initiative, you will meet and collaborate with fellow colleagues working on health and wellness in their organizations. We would like this initiative to act as a forum for participating companies to share successful practices, discuss common barriers facing health promotion, and either learn how to jump-start their own wellness programs or improve upon already existing practices.
- Evaluating and Building
Set up, refine or add programs
To facilitate this learning process, we compile and distribute a comprehensive list of best practices based upon the participating companies’ current programs and metrics. The list allows all of the participating companies to either use these examples as a model to set up their first wellness program or review their current practices in comparison to other companies’ wellness programs.
- Get guidance on what and how to measure.
For many companies one of the most intimidating aspects of creating a wellness program is measuring and tracking the data. As a participant of Fit for Life-Fit for Work, you will receive direction and advice for how to set up a metrics system to easily measure program results. The most useful and important areas of measurement may include:
- Absenteeism
- Number of programs in place in each company
- Number of employees participating in each program
- Employee satisfaction
- Health outcomes and behavioral change
- Reducing health care costs – increasing productivity
The return on investment for health and wellness programs is phenomenal and there is money left on the table for your company! According to The Journal of Health Promotion, 73 published studies of worksite health promotion programs in America shows an average of $3.50 savings for every dollar invested in wellness. The results are startling!
- An average 28% reduction in sick-leave absenteeism
- An average 26% reduction in health costs
- An average 30% reduction in workers’ compensation and disability claims costs.
How do I participate?
- Sign-up and assign a representative to serve on our Senior Task Force.
- Attend monthly meetings – First one is January 16, 2008 at 9:30 am at SVLG
- 2nd Wednesday of each month (except Jan/May)
- Meetings will be less frequent once program is established
We strongly encourage you to participate in this important work. To sign up, please contact us at healthcare@svlg.net. For questions, please contact our Director of Health Care, Emily Lam at elam@svlg.net or 408-501-7876.
