Exercise programs can have big benefits for corporations
I was having lunch with some friends last week and one friend was asking about any research or studies that show that an exercise program for a company can have any benefit to its employees. I remembered a few articles that I had read several years ago that demonstrated that there were some studies from companies with fitness programs and the results of their efforts. It seems that a company with as few as four employees to a large corporation can show benefits in several ways.
Some of this information may be a little out of date as the articles were almost 10 years ago. But I imagine the results will be the same today as it was 10 years ago. A few of the examples of studies on companies showed that exercise or fitness programs not only helped the employees fitness it also made some financial gains for the company. Northern Gas offered employees a fitness program and found that the employee that took advantage of the program had 80% fewer sick days. General Electric’s aircraft division found that when they offered a fitness program medical claims for enrolled fitness employees dropped 27%. In contrast those employees that did not take advantage of the fitness program had an increase in medical claims of 17%. Coca-Cola found that employees in their fitness program saved the company about $500 per employee on health care claims. That is a substantial financial gain for a company.
When a company figures an 80% fewer missed days of work, a 27% decrease in medical claims, and saving $500 less in health care programs for members of fitness programs all mean substantial savings. All in all the “boss” is making money on offering fitness programs. While the initial cost of adding fitness equipment and maybe time off for a run at lunch time the investment paid dividends.
One other area where fitness employees and runners in the company seemed to benefit was in the reduction of stress. It seems two factors that prove detrimental to a company’s welfare are a reduction of work capabilities from stress and inactivity. There is quite a bit of research that states that inactivity and stress leads to ailments such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other autoimmune diseases. All of these ailments will result in a decrease in work capacity in an employee.
One study asked employees three questions: 1) How did they interact with their colleagues? 2) How well did they manage their time? 3) Did they meet their deadlines? Of those that exercised 65% of them mentioned that they fared better on days they worked out. On a personal level I always had good results at solving problems or reducing a stressful situation by going for a run or hitting the weights for a workout. It seems a solution was easier to arrive at during the exercise bout.
While fitness benefits a corporation both health wise and financially the same results have been shown by students in school. One reported example in the book ‘Spark’ by John Ratey, M. D. told of the results of students in Naperville, Illinois. The school has a ‘zero hour’ of PE before classes start for the eighth graders. The students signed up for an international test in math and science. The test is given to 230,000 students in 38 countries. The students from Naperville finished first in science and sixth in math. They were behind Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan in the math test. As a whole the students in the United States finished 18th in science and 19th in math.
Another example of fitness level and academic standings comes from a study in California. Among California’s 279,000 ninth graders those that passed the six items on the fitness test finished in the 67th percentile in math and 45th percentile in reading compared to students who only passed one of the tests and scored 35th percentile in math and 21st percentile in reading.
The one interesting statistic that came about from the different studies is that for corporate fitness it seems that if the employee exercised for only 15 minutes a day benefits were accomplished. For the students the fitness was a combination of playing games as well as running and exercise. The fitness was not always a struggle but was also fun.
It seems that going for a run or to the gym to work out has benefits other than health.
