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Employers Lose $623 Per Employee Each Year Due to Unhealthy Behavior!

By James Edholm

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 16Mar2012
Word count: 415
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An index was created by Thomson Reuters, known as "Workforce Wellness Index". This index was specifically designed and created in order to evaluate the collective health of America's workforce. The Workforce Wellness Index demonstrates that the rising poor health is causing American employers to shell out more money each year on medical costs.

$623 is the average cost that an employer will lose per employee each year. Think about it, what is that cost to 30 percent or more of American workers who are the sickest and fattest. As an employer, this means that you will need to shell out 623 dollars for medical costs per employee (per employee!) if they get sick due to their own unhealthy behavior - this is the part where you scream "It's not fair!"

Around 14 percent of the total medical costs are linked to 6 measurement criteria:

Blood pressure Blood glucose Cholesterol Body mass index (BMI) Alcohol use Tobacco use

The BMII measures, is the relative "bigness" of the American population, and it is the biggest factor in "plumpness" and also the biggest factor in medical costs.

You may be one of those employers who really does not want to poke your nose in your employees' business after they off the clock. But you may need to reconsider your "No prying" stand, if you strongly believe that an employee's unhealthy behavior could cost you a handsome sum.

As an employer, shelling out a lot of money on medical costs (because your employee just had too much smoke and alcohol the other night at a bar and passed out while working on one of the lathe machines) is not something you want to make a habit of. The big question is "why is it that we as a people, think that we can just chow down on sweet and unhealthy foods, sit in front of the television with the remote control permanently stuck in one hand, smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, not take part in healthy exercise routines and think that we are going to be just fine?"

Why do we have a habit of making a mess and expecting other people (in this case, our bosses) to pick up a broom and mop and clean up our mess!

As an employer, you also need to make sure that your employees are observing a healthy lifestyle by also making sure that you implement health and fitness policies.

Jim Edholm is President of Business Benefits Insurance (BBI), an employee benefits planning firm in Andover, MA. He has worked with employers for more than 25 years and can be contacted at (978) 474-4730, via his website (www.bbibenefits.com), or via e-mail (jedholm@bbibenefits.com

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