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The next generation of wellness programs define health much more broadly.
The HR leaders at Cisco Systems believe that employee wellness is about far more than offering the occasional onsite Weight Watchers meeting. Wellness goes beyond even providing the disease management programs that became popular in the early 2000s. Indeed, for the tech company, the very concept of wellness has evolved to include all aspects of employees' well-being-from their finances to their social life. Cisco offers financial education (personal financial counseling is in the works), flexible work policies, five paid-time-off days a year for volunteer work, onsite mindfulness workshops and a generous paid-parental-leave program. And the business isn't giving short shrift to its workers' physical health, either: The 24,000-square-foot spa-like LifeConnections Center on its San Jose, Calif., campus offers onsite primary medical care, fitness centers, outdoor sports courts, hiking and biking paths, and a child care center.
Like Cisco, many companies today are dramatically expanding their vision of wellness. "The big thing in the HR world is that the industry is sort of rebranding, if you will, from wellness to well-being," says Sarah Sardella, senior director for global benefits at Akamai Technologies, an Internet service provider based in Cambridge, Mass., with more than 7,100 employees globally and 3,250 in the U.S. "There was this initial focus on health and fitness-physical health. Now everyone is saying 'What about financial wellness, emotional well-being and mental mindfulness?' " Sardella says.
These efforts may not always pay off quickly in cold, hard dollars saved on health care costs, but they can create happier, more productive and focused employees who are less stressed and less likely to miss work or leave the company, which may ultimately result in greater savings.
"We want people to be at their best. That brings value to our employees, to their families and, of course, to Cisco," says Karen Wiens, director of global benefits for the company's 76,000 employees, including nearly 37,000 workers in the U.S.
HR's Expanding Mission
Wellness programs have been a part of HR's mission since the 1970s, coinciding with a general culture of fitness and emerging research on the cost of poor employee health on businesses' bottom line. Today, these programs are popular and growing: More than 9 in 10...