Study states: Overweight Employees Cost Businesses More
A recent study by the
What this could possibly suggest for companies is that they might want to think about investing in human capital. That is, more companies should implement heath programs into their companies. Idealistically, with a health program readily available for their employees, employees in turn will use the program and become healthier on the whole. A healthier workforce implies a more productive work force. Additionally, if a company is concerned about too many people taking off for sick days or due to an injury, the company could maybe offer an incentive in the form of a monetary bonus at the end of the year if a person takes a certain number of personal days or less.
What do you think about this study and this article? Should more companies begin to invest in human capital and create health programs. Or will the costs outweigh the benefits; or said another way, will the program cost more to the company then the benefits of recouping the productivity lost from when people take sick days?
11 comments:
Just the other day I did a presentation on Wal-Mart. They have just started to not hire overweight employees. I think this is a good investment. If I was a manager I would want the most productive workers availiabe. If a worker cant do all the tasks necessary then they shouldnt be working in the store/company. Some might think is discrimination. I think it's good business practice.
As idealistically it would be nice to have a health productive workforce, but at what cost does that come. If companies start to create health programs, which would cost money, and resort to only hiring less overweight people then those less overweight people would have more bargaining power and be able to extract more money from a company. This way the company could end up paying more money for the health programs as well as paying more money to employ these less overweight workers which would be in higher demand. Everything comes at a cost, so the real question is how much is a company willing to spend to insure a healthier workforce? Would a health programs be enough, do you need to start giving monetary incentives or start discriminating? I personally think that it would be wise for a company to offer monetary incentives. They would most likely cost the company less money than other suggestions without discriminating and still giving money back to the economy. If you restrict who is allowed to work by their weight then you could end up with a lot of people on unemployed and on welfare which would not do the economy any good.
I agree with BHowell, if Walmart has already started not hiring overweight people, they could be sued for discrimination. Also companies have already started giving incentives for not missing work its called you don't lose your job, I know a Brooks distribution center and Sears stores that have implemented a points system, if you miss days of work you get points against you and so many points is call for dismissal. As for health care benefits I think that is a great idea, but do that costs out weigh the benefits. I mean how many people will whole hardly participate to make this worth the cost to the company. I think it is a good thing but could potentially be a disaster to people in the work force and how many will stay with that job if they are not intrested in being monitored at being healthy.
I believe since 65% of adults are overweight the study is flawed. If more people are overweight then not overweight. It makes sense to say that more overweight people get injured on the job, because there are more overweight people in the work force. Of course the numbers will look like this, and to say that not hiring overweight people isn't discrimination is ignorant. Discrimination is practiced widely while hiring and assigning positions. For example I worked at a napoli's around the Marietta area and was told they don't put guys on the counter if they can help it, because woman are more appealing at the register. Discrimination much?
What Walmart is doing is discrimination, not hiring people because of their weight. I think companies should get have an incentive if you don't miss so many days. But then I think it is a good idea to have some kind of health program. Why not help everyone lose some weight and get in better shape, it could possibly reduce the number of overweight people in the US. You would just haev to look at the long run effects which one might save you money the incentive or creating a health program?
I think the result of the research makes some sense, and also I agree the companies should consider building some health program to increase the employees’ productivity. But at first, they need to figure out the optimal cost on such programs to achieve a higher profit. However, trying not to hire overweight employees is just like some firms prefer male to female. It’s a kind of discrimination.
I think that a compny investing in some sort of health program would be a great benefit to the employees and the look of the company. More employees will like having the extra benefit of health programs which will lead to a more healthier lifestyle. The morale of the company I believe would also increase with people working together to stay healthy. Incentives are great to have at work and something that would better the employee and the company will be beneficial for the consumers as well.
I believe that if a corporation has a large amount of overweight employess and the benefits would obviously outweigh the costs of starting a fitness program,then yes they should definately implement a program into their work. However, in a lot of cases where the benefits do not outweigh the costs, then I would just not higher overweight workers due to the fact that they would be costing my company more and would be less efficient than a non-overweight worker. I don't think that this should be considered discrimination if these overweight workers are bearing a higher cost on the company.
I don't exactly think that a company can hire or not hire you based only on your weight. And I'm sure that they don't, but the type of industry also needs to be considered. Overweight construction workers would definitely be less productive than those who are in shape. Police and Fire departments will not keep you on staff if you are not in shape, which makes sense. In office jobs however, I think that the person should be hired if they are right for the job, but health should be stressed in all of it's importance. Possibly implementing a program where a yearly physical based on the attributes of a person that they can control such as obesity or smoking could affect their benefits or allotted sick days.
This article brings up an interesting point. Companies should offer incentives to keep their employees healthy to lower the overall health care costs. They should install health centers free to employees to use because by doing this companies would save money in the long run.
While it is considered unethical to dicriminate based on weight.. if the findings are true and consistent then it would be a good idea to implement some kind of incentive program for fitness levels like you are eligible for health care only as long as your bodyfat% is under the level of obesity
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