Wellness Around the Watercooler

American Fitness, Sept, 1999 by Steven Harlan

In-house gyms and wellness facilities can aid in optimizing corporate employee performance.

Freshly showered and invigorated after her Basic Step Aerobics class, Lizette Gonzalez walks a few steps to her workstation, ready to finish her day with enthusiasm and energy. Gonzalez isn't a fitness instructor--she's a bill collector. She, like thousands of Americans, exercises at the workout facility provided by her company. Gonzalez's difficult high-tension job demands much from her, but she combats stress with frequent use of the free wellness center located only steps away from her desk.

Many large companies such as Sprint, Hallmark and Gillette provide employees with an in-house gym. These wellness centers offer a broad range of isometric equipment, free weights and a variety of supervised classes. Many companies supply wellness centers at no cost, while others provide their employees with subsidized centers or discounts to an outside facility. Not only do wellness centers reduce health care costs, sick days and turnover rates, but they also increase employee morale, productivity and profits.

According to Publicom Incorporated, a public health screening provider, companies lose 26.7 million workdays per year to illness and disabilities, translating to $1.3 billion in lost productivity. Tenneco reports a 13 percent lower turnover rate among employees who exercise at the wellness center compared to those who do not. After the city of Glendale, Arizona, set up a wellness center for its employees, absenteeism and workplace accidents dropped by 50 percent--even after its workforce tripled.

Dr. Dennis Colacino, head of research and development for Health Fitness Corporation, one of the largest corporate wellness providers, estimates 140,000 people use the 150 in-house centers run by his company. "Any first rate company has to have a wellness center to remain competitive," says Colacino.

Jeff Aebersold manages a wellness center at Citigroup Credit Services and focuses classes on employee needs. About 40 percent of the approximately 1,800 workers at Citigroup are members of the wellness center. "Getting people to enroll is the greatest challenge," Aebersold says. "Keeping them coming to the center is the next hurdle."

Most gyms and workout facilities face this challenge. At the Ford Motor Company's assembly plant in Kansas City, Missouri, Denise Cavlovic supervises her wellness center, which was jointly provided by the Local 149 United Auto Workers and Ford. She utilizes her 11 years of experience for developing ideas to trigger and maintain employee interest in health improvement. Of the plant's 5,000 workers, about 1,100 are members of the wellness center. "These members are very loyal," Cavlovic says. "They come as often as possible. We usually have 120 visitors per day."

Aebersold and Cavlovic agree that, as instructors, their first priority is getting people hooked on fitness. "Some people join no matter what, while others would never join," Cavlovic says. "But there is a vast number of people in the middle, and that is the group we have to encourage to join." At a corporate site, an instructor can send inter-office e-mails and place advertisements for special programs in the employees' mailboxes. "However," Cavlovic says, "at an industrial center, we must rely mostly upon word of mouth."

Incentives provide a powerful motivation for employees to join and use wellness centers. Honeywell Incorporated offered a $200 bonus to employees to help jump-start their wellness program. "At Ford, we experienced an 85 percent membership increase after we started using more incentives," says Cavlovic. "We have to get people to sign up. Only then can we work on other areas like smoking cessation and nutrition."

At the Citigroup site, members earn points for using the facility. Wellness center members use outside activity cards to record exercise done beyond the in-house gym. Employees can then exchange points for prizes, ranging from ice-scrapers to weightlifting gloves. Both the Citigroup and Ford wellness centers have program cards that allow the instructors to track participants' progress and use of the facilities. "People need targets," Aebersold says. "And the cards help people remember their activity levels by recording the machines used, weight lifted and classes taken. Then people can see if they are ready to move to another level of fitness."

Aebersold, with the help of assistant Amy Noll, periodically creates a special incentive program that runs for a few months. Noll says competitions work well because "for the most part, your peers and coworkers will be at the same level of fitness as you."

"The special programs make the wellness center exciting," Aebersold says. Both Aebersold's and Cavlovic's wellness facilities created an activity where participants earn yards and touchdowns which convert into prizes. At Citigroup, Aebersold places people on AFC and NFC teams that compete against one another to gain the most incentive points. During the holiday season, Aebersold runs an incentive program entitled "Maintain, Don't Gain." During this program, members can earn extra incentive points for maintaining their current weight during the dietarily difficult holiday season.