The Road to Wellville

Take a Snapshot

Andersen Windows, a manufacturer based in Bayport, is just one of the local employers that has embraced the wellness movement. The steps the company has taken to influence employee health illustrate the potential of a comprehensive wellness approach.

In 2004, Andersen Windows decided to get on the prevention wagon after it gauged the overall health of its 9,000 employees and found it lacking. “We determined that preventing costs would be a whole lot better than keeping up with those really expensive claims,” says Sharon Wieker, the company’s health improvement program manager. Through an analysis of its health claims, Andersen divided its population into low-, medium- and high-risk or chronic categories. It found that cardiovascular disease, maternity, back strains, cancer, and diabetes were the medical conditions generating the most claims. With that analysis and through focus groups, Andersen also learned that too many employees weren’t taking advantage of the company’s 100-percent coverage of preventive care, says Chris Lindstrom, Andersen’s director of compensation and benefits. “There’s a fairly significant portion of our population who never go to the doctor,” Lindstrom says. A scary fact—but he and Wieker say it also represented an immediate opportunity for education, intervention, and prevention.

Motivate

With its claims data in hand, Andersen Windows hired StayWell last year to help it roll out a three-year wellness initiative. Participants fill out a comprehensive health questionnaire. StayWell then uses those results to identify candidates for programs such as phone-based coaching, online resources, and on-site classes.

Branding the program “A+ Health,” Andersen kicked off the campaign last fall with in-house advertising, plus an incentive to save $5 a month on health premiums for 2006. Meaningful incentives are a key participation driver, experts say. “If we offer a health risk appraisal with no incentive, even if it’s communicated well, on average we’ll see only 15 to 20 percent participation,” says Anderson of StayWell. Offering even a small incentive raises that rate to more than 50 percent; Andersen Windows is aiming for an 80 percent participation rate. Some companies, say Anderson and Pronk, get virtually 100-percent participation.

Consistent, ongoing communication and support is also critical. If a CEO supports the program, for example, but plant managers resent giving workers a 15-minute break to do a health screening, employees are going to be reluctant to participate, says Brian Gagne, vice president of programs and services for Health Fitness Corporation, a Bloomington-based provider of corporate fitness and health management services. “They wonder, ‘Even though the CEO sent a letter to my home about this, am I going to lose my job for this?’”

If managers are excited about the program, employees will be, too. At Andersen, for example, Wieker now hears employees talking about their health in line at the cafeteria, where each item carries a nutrition label. “They’re saying, ‘I think I’ll add some vegetables to that,’” she says.