How You Can Save Your Company Thousands in Medical Insurance Cost
Find out how to save money on health care costs, using some excellent non discriminatory tactics to help prevent serious health care treatments.
For any HR employee, you know that one of the largest costs your employees incur are their medical expenses. Every employer wants to provide healthcare for their employees; however, it is impossible to provide care only to those employees who don’t need it. To save money on healthcare costs, there are some excellent non discriminatory tactics you can use to help prevent your employees from needing serious health care treatments. Prevention is key.
For all employers, it is a good idea to discourage smoking. Not only will this provide your employees with long term benefits to their health, but the more non smoking employees you have, the lower your health care costs will be. It is illegal to fire anyone for being a smoker, but you can do things like not allowing smoking in or around your building, and giving office incentives like sponsored treatment to help employees kick the habit. Employees who are listed as smokers can be reevaluated annually if they’ve quit.
Add a gym to shave health care costs, and trim the waists of your employees. Fitter workers cost less to insure, and good overall health will prevent future problems like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. You can’t force anyone to work out, but by having employees log gym time you can offer bonuses like paid time working out (within reason). A gym doesn’t have to be a huge investment, either. A few machines in an old conference room and a small shower in the restrooms should be fine for most companies.
It might be a good idea to have your own small company cafeteria, or deli. Many employees go out for unhealthy fast food because they don’t want to pack a lunch, or simply don’t have time to eat a healthy meal. By providing a healthy alternative at the workplace you can give employees the opportunity to eat a nutritionally balanced meal. They will also spend less time away from work, meaning that productivity will increase. If you provide the food at a reasonable price, you may also find that you make a small profit from the sale of lunches and breakfasts to employees.
One of the biggest preventative measures you can take is allowing employees time off to recover when they’re ill. This doesn’t mean that they have to stop working, though. By allowing all employees a certain number of days to telecommute, you can ensure that they have time off to relax and recuperate, but that they don’t leave work unfinished. Sometimes a day out of the office and time to sleep late is all employees need.
