Employers should urge workers to adopt healthier lifestyles

It is more and more apparent that employee health impacts productivity and profitability. South of the border, lifestyle change is the order of the day. Benefit news "Businesses should invest more in financial incentives to urge workers to adopt healthier lifestyles, because medical cost containment depends on changing people's habits."

The difference that we face in Canada is that cost containment is not our primary focus when it comes to healthcare. Cost containment has long been part of the Canadian equation for disability insurance and workers' compensation programs. Otherwise, employers count on the medicare system to address the medical problems of their employees. So it is a non-issue. Or is it?

An inadvertant result of not having to care about cost containment related to medical problems, is that employers tend to not care at all about employee medical problems.

While the employer has no DIRECT cost of employee health costs, the indirect costs rise year to year, as employees are out sick more often and longer. Canadian employers are greatly impacted by the loss of productivity resulting from medical absence.

Consequently, while the US initiative - to change employees' lifestyle habits as suggested by the article is sound for Canadian employers, the driver is different.

Ultimately, though, be it cost containment, or re-couped productivity, it all ends up on the bottom line.