QUALITY: Workplace Wellness Linked to Flexible Work Arrangements

Is workplace flexibility good for your health? How about your mental health? The New America Foundation's Workforce and Family Program teamed up with the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, the American Psychological Association, and Workplace Flexibility 2010 to look at the interaction between work and health outcomes.

The event Supporting a Healthier American Workplace: Workplace Flexibility and Mental Health and Wellness explored how giving employees more control over when, where, and how long they work means they are better able to take care of themselves and their families. Less stress, more happiness. Over time, employees with flexible work arrangements are less likely to experience a decline in their physical or mental health. Though flexibility and wellness programs do have a positive impact on employees, indicators of individual health move pretty slowly—so we can't be sure that flexibility is definitely going to lower health care costs, especially when we're measuring in the short-term.

Some employers have also implemented prevention and wellness programs in an attempt to lower costs. Many of the companies testing such programs believe they have seen tangible health care savings from year to year. Direct Communications in Silver Spring, MD, one of the winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence and Workplace Flexibility, estimated it had saved about $5 million over five years, spending less on health insurance and having employees miss less work.

Last week, President Obama met with business and union leaders to discuss workplace strategies to improve employee health and lower health care costs. According to Politico, through the use of wellness programs, Johnson and Johnson asserted $15.9 million in savings in 2007, and Pitney Bowes claimed they had saved $40 million over the past nine years.

Flexibility arrangements are usually seen as a "long-term" rather than a short term investment in health care savings. We can't wipe out diabetes overnight by creating healthier workplaces, but we can start a healthier culture that will probably save money in the long run. Changing the culture of the workplace to promote better health—and consequently, changing how we take care of ourselves and our children—is a good starting point for making the whole population healthier.