Your company's management must support your wellness program efforts for them to be successful. Managers will want to know:
Three fundamental messages are critical in gaining management support for diabetes prevention and management efforts:
According to an article from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine entitled "The Link Between Workforce Health and Safety and the Health of the Bottom Line: Tracking Market Performance of Companies that Nurture a "Culture of Health", companies that build a culture of health by focusing on the well-being and safety of their workforce yield greater value for their investors. The same journal included the article, "Health and Productivity as a Business Strategy", which showed that employers of all sizes are discovering a competitive edge through understanding the broader health and productivity costs of their enterprise and investing in the health of their workforce. A meta-analysis found that participants in workplace health promotion programs had about 25% lower medical and absenteeism expenditures than nonparticipants according to an article in the American Journal of Health Promotion entitled "Meta-evaluation of Worksite Health Promotion Economic Return Studies". Another study showed that the savings associated with worksite health promotion programs amounted to $3.27 and with additional cost savings of $2.70 resulted from reduced absenteeism for every $1.00 invested as published in Health Affairs.
Recently, there has been some controversy about the value of worksite wellness programs. But evidence over the past 30 years shows that well-designed, evidence-based programs can achieve positive health and financial outcomes. Employers should use best practices to increase the likeliness of success. A Joint Consensus Statement published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine provides information about these best practices.