Paying People to Do What Any Sensible Person Should Do As Part of Life: Is This A Good Idea?

The Well Infidel – July 25, 2010

Did you know that many American companies pay employees to exercise?

A Wall Street Journal article entitled, Employees Get Financial Incentives to Lose Weight (July 8, 2010) describes the extent to which some employers will go to induce workers to make sensible choices that reduce their risks of preventable illnesses. For the most part, payments are offered to motivate overweight or obese employees to walk, run, bike, swim or otherwise move more often than is their custom. What do you think of this practice? Before deciding, let me tell you a bit more about it.

The objective of such corporate programs is to induce activities that will lead to leaner, fitter workers with improved health status.  This in turn is seen as fostering lower organizational costs associated with obesity and other adverse (i.e., costly) consequences of poor lifestyle habits. The fact that about a third of all employers do this trying to lower their medical claims might lead you to the conclusion that we have reached a sorry state. What is America coming to? What next - financial incentives to bathe? To use restrooms when nature calls rather than hallways or storage closets? Are there not some things an employer should expect of any employee? Did any company offer such incentives during the Great Depression? I don't think so and if I'm right about that, why was that so? Were Americans more sensible then or just hungrier? Or are there other explanations?

I suspect that by this point your opinion of such incentives is firm. But wait - let me offer a few more facts about the current situation before you set your opinion in stone on this experiment.

Business owners and managers have concluded that such incentives are an economically sensible thing to offer given the realities of American lifestyles. After all, three quarters of the adult population is overweight or obese. The WSJ article indicated that private employers lose almost $45 billion per year in health care costs and diminished productivity due to obesity.

One last point before you decide for sure where you stand on this kind of policy. Consider that companies do not pay very much to support this exercise incentive. Thus, you might consider that if doing so gets workers moving, it's a good thing. At IBM, for instance, the company's cost is but $150 per employee annually.

OK - where do you stand? For it or against it?

At present, the incentive to exercise is not very effective. It certainly will not set the nation's work force off on a frenzy of exercise, leading in time to wellness lifestyles at the black belt level. Don't get your hopes up for this kind of lifestyle revolution as a consequence of any company policy - such transformations cannot be expected this side of the miracle fantasy category. Consider that the only study of cash incentives, conducted last year at Cornell University, suggests that we should curb our enthusiasm about the prospects of change via cash incentives for weight loss, or anything else. Seven such programs were tracked and the conclusion was not so encouraging - average participants lost one pound. That, as you know, could be regained just looking at a typical American super-sized meal.

I thought the most interesting part of the WSJ article was the result reported from a reverse incentive experiment. When the reward system was turned on its head, results were much better. In this case, money was put aside BEFORE an exercise start up period and FORFEITED if the employee's pound loss goal was not realized and sustained by a date specific. Termed refundable bonds, participants agreed to shed X pounds by Y date or forfeit money available to them if they failed to meet their weight loss goal. With this approach, employees lost an average of four pounds. Still not highly significant.

Well, I know you are waiting for the really important part of this essay, namely, my opinion.

I kind of like it. It's cheap, does no harm, stimulates many to move more than they usually do and shows that the company cares about the good health of the workforce. Alas, it's totally ineffective as far as sustained behavior change is concerned, because the ultimate reason most workers don't exercise regularly and sufficiently is because they just can't do it - the multi-level deck is stacked impossibly high against them. A few dollars here and there is a pitiful inducement given the life realities that make most people sedentary. These include poor environments, lack of support, work schedules and pressures, long commutes and customs that discourage most employees from making the time for daily exercise at a suitable place

Aussie worksite wellness expert Rod Lees was given a copy of this material and asked to comment. He wrote: The whole money incentive thing worries me. I particularly don't like the one where money is withdrawn if weight is not lost. That could cause individuals to do stupid stuff like some boxers and jockeys in order to make weight. I would much prefer that an organization provide wellness services than to see them give individuals money for exercise to lose weight.

There is a small percentage of people in this country who do exercise, maintain healthy weights and live wellness lifestyles, even though they have families, full-time jobs and interesting lives filled with diverse activities and interests. Everyone has time demands. If companies are so concerned about holding down their medical costs, they should hire from the segment of the population that exercises regularly. Except for professionals who are paid to exercise in wondrous ways so advanced that we pay to watch them do it, fit people exercise for nothing. Nobody pays them to do it. It's a key element in their quality lifestyles. While companies can't legally discriminate against fat people who presumably do not exercise, they can favor those who value fitness. It might be more effective to hire wisely before spending money paying workers to do what sensible and fortunate people do for their own reasons wholly unrelated to employer incentives.

Be well, look on the bright side of life and do the right thing, even if nobody pays you for it.