Every year, injuries and poor health cost businesses thousands of hours of lost work. An employee who does not take care of his own personal health is not just hurting himself. He can be hurting his employer as well. Like it or not, the business that employs him may be expected to take care of him if his health fails, and he ends up unable to be fully productive at work and has to be “carried” by the company and by his fellow workers.
Health risk assessment is one of the best ways to remedy this undesirable situation. Not only do wellness incentives work to cut the risks to a business, but they also help employees stay healthier, longer. Although some people find health risk assessments to be intrusive, unfair, and micro-managerial, nevertheless they are good for both management and employees. Never has so simple a development done so much to keep productivity at a high level.
Basically health risk assessment works by keeping track of a number of factors for each employee. A good health risk assessment will keep track of whether the employee exercises, whether or not he is obese, whether or not he eats well, and whether or not he smokes or abuses alcohol. Then, the hazard risk assessment software will assign him a score. This score will indicate how likely he is to stay healthy. The score changes based on the employees age, and other factors.
Of course, what you do with the score depends on company’s policies. I have actually seen many companies that will determine a health risk assessment score and let it sit. They do nothing with it at all! Others take a more proactive approach. They give what are called wellness incentives. Wellness incentives are bonuses for anyone who lowers their health risk assessment. You can lower these scores by exercising frequently, eating well, losing weight, and maintaining a healthily lifestyle.
Other people take a more negative approach and punish employees with bad health risk assessments. I have even heard of some employees being fired because they will not, or can not, do enough to lower their health risk assessments. Personally, I think this is unfair but I understand the reason it is done. If you keep a bad health risk assessment score, you are not only hurting yourself, but putting your employer at economic risk as well. Why shouldn’t you lose your job for that? It seems like reckless behavior to me!
