Last week, the Workplace Wellness Campaign (WWC), aimed at all New Jersey employers, was launched by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute (NJHCQI) in partnership with the New Jersey Business and Industry Association (NJBIA) and New Jersey Chamber of Commerce (NJCC).
"Healthcare costs are having an enormous negative impact on New Jersey companies, both large and small. Anything we can do to lower these high costs is worth doing," said NJBIA President Phil Kirschner, in a press release. "Wellness programs offer hope for doing just that. What makes this program so great is that it will help small businesses that may not have the resources to implement wellness programs by themselves.”
Some studies, said Donald Sico, vice president of development for the NJHCQI, have measured that workplace wellness programs have shown a three-to-one return on investment for companies.
“There’s increased productivity with employees, decreased absenteeism and long-term cuts by controlling diseases or sicknesses in employees early on,” he said. “Employers won’t have to pay for as many health concerns. I think this something that the entire business community can get their hands around.”
WWC is modeled on New Jersey’s Mayors Wellness Campaign (MWC), which now has has more than two-thirds of the state's municipalities engaged in fitness, nutrition and community health activities regularly noted David L. Knowlton, president and CEO of the NJHCQI, in a written statement. "In the Mayors Wellness Campaign, we made mayors 'champions' of community health. We hope to do the same for corporate leaders with the Workplace Wellness Campaign."
The WWC is being supported with a grant from the Walmart Foundation. While there is no cost to join, New Jersey employers are being asked to sign a wellness pledge, said Sico.
“We’ve had a great deal of success with the Mayors Wellness Campaign so we thought why not try to replicate that in the workplace?” said Sico. “We’ve put together best practices, events and conferences, and get the CEO or another employee to be the champion for wellness in their workplace.”
Sico said the WWC set a goal of having 1,000 employers representing 100,000 workers signed up by next summer and a goal of 10,000 Garden State employers and 1 million workers in five years.
"The fact of the matter is that wellness programs work. They save money and they increase worker productivity. This is a 'no-brainer' for corporate executives," said former New Jersey Gov. James J. Florio, in a press release.