Corporate Wellness Programs - Build or Buy?
Recently a survey of human resource managers showed that in 2008 approximately 33% of moderately sized to large business organizations were offering health and lifestyle programs to their staff and employees.
What is it about corporate wellness programs that these organizations feel is important? Could it be that business owners and managers have concluded that employee health and employee performance are directly connected?
The answer is clearly yes. A similar study of 355 human resource and health benefits managers of companies with at least 1000 employees showed that companies with robust company wellness programs scored higher on most important revenue indicators. They had up to 20 percent higher revenue per employee, 16 percent higher market share compared to others in their industry, and 57 percent higher returns per share for stockholders.
Every company considering the introduction or effective development of a health coaching service must come to grips with the question whether to build their own program in-house, or make an arrangement with a third-party to provide these services. This is the “build or buy” question so familiar to managers considering adding services for which they do not have already-existing expertise.
Those who opt to build their own corporate wellness program they usually choose this option because they assume this approach results in more control over the design, content and delivery of the program. They also think it will be a less time-consuming process since their own people understand their organization better than someone from the outside.
They also tend to assume they will be able to leverage already-existing expertise within their company, as well as integrate the new services with established programs they are already managing. They assume this approach will cost less than one designed and/or managed by a third party not familiar with their organization.
But as many new designers and managers of workplace wellness programs have discovered there are usually many variables to this type of program that in-house staff are unprepared to handle.
As they soon discover, designing a program from scratch just about always takes much longer than it takes a third-party provider to modify an already proven program. With an experience third-party source there will be much less trial and error, and far fewer mistakes. So contrary to initial assumptions it should be possible to get a third-party solution up and running more quickly and with fewer glitches and problems.
Managers also find that the significant technical requirements of running an internet-based corporate wellness program will require significant training of already-existing staff, or more likely the hiring of new staff with the technical competence to design and maintain such a program. Even then these people will likely not have the specific expertise that has been developed by a proven third-party provider of such services.
The bottom line is that if you are a manager considering the implementation of an employee wellness program you should carefully consider all the options. As many others have already done, you may come to the conclusion that using a third-party service is more efficient, less stressful, and more economical.