In the Information Technology (IT) business, maintaining project profitability often requires keeping personnel costs at a minimal level. However, rising health insurance premiums coupled with new health care reform legislation is putting an additional burden on IT companies. For employees who spend eight-plus hours a day working on intense projects at their computer stations, the need for routine wellness care is vital to their productivity and quality of work. Not having access to affordable health care support means illness, injury, and lost work time for your most valuable investment: your people. Therefore, it’s up to each IT company to ensure the health and well-being of all employees.

A corporate sponsored wellness program can be a solution to reducing the costs of health care in the workplace. Here are five ways a wellness program can save your IT business money this year.

1. Reminds employees of risky lifestyle behaviors. The IT world can be a very high pressure work environment, leading employees to engage in risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and overeating. The long work hours can also be damaging to physical and mental well-being, due to being stuck at a desk a lot and not getting enough exercise. Having a wellness program on site allows employees alternative ways to deal with stress and help reduce risky behaviors, which over the long run improves employee performance.
2. Provides access to self-managed wellness care. The best wellness program can empower your employees to take better control of their health and well-being. Providing onsite wellness benefits, such as a corporate gym, massage therapy, an employee assistance program, flu shots, and more can help employees see you are vested in their success. Web-based wellness programs, which cost pennies as compared to doctor visits, provide even more value by reminding employees to take care of their health and reach important wellness goals.
3. Reduces health care insurance premiums and sick time. A study conducted by Harvard University in 2010 advised that when employees have access to corporate wellness support, this reduces the cost of health care insurance premiums and sick time. For each dollar spent on an employee wellness program, health premiums drop by $3.27 and an additional $2.73 is saved in absentee days. That can be significant for an IT department that deals with frequent illness or absenteeism.
4. Prevents catastrophic losses due to illness and injury. Imagine an IT workforce that’s healthy, mentally and physically strong? When IT employees are given the opportunity and encouragement to take advantage of a corporate wellness program, they are less likely to experience preventable ailments common in IT (neck pain, stress headaches, back injuries, repetitive motion injuries) that cause them to miss work or file workers’ compensation claims.
5. Increases workplace productivity and project management. To boost your IT employee performance levels, add a wellness programs like fitness programs from Aligned Modern Health. This can give employees a healthier outlet to reduce stress, eat healthier, and get up out of their chairs for some exercise. These activities have been shown over and over again to improve physical and mental well-being, meaning you benefit by having more productive and high performance employees on board.

While workplace wellness programs can be a cost effective way to make your IT workplace better, there are some ways to experience even more benefits. Roll it out with full management support, be consistent, and keep employees informed about new resources they can use to stay healthy at work.

Tess C. Taylor, PHR is a certified Web Content Manager, Human Resources Professional, and Career Coach with nearly two-decades of writing experience. Tess also founded the popular blogazine, The HR Writer. As a regular contributor to multiple HR and Business publications, including Benefitfocus, Dale Carnegie Institute, HR Magazine, PayScale, and US News Careers, Tess is dedicated to educating others about important human resources and marketing topics worldwide.