New meaning to office grind with workplace wellness plans

Companies spend more on employee wellness initiatives

One afternoon at Euromoney Institutional Investor's Manhattan offices, workers trickle into a conference room toting yoga mats and wearing workout gear. The furniture is shoved into corners, opening up the beige industrial carpet for a dozen people to take a vinyasa class. Midway through the series of sun salutations and warrior poses, everyone is sweaty - especially the guy who didn't change out of his work outfit, and is now suffering the indignity of a lavender button-down clinging to his torso. After an hour of flow, the group collapses onto the floor for Corpse Pose. Lying on their backs, arms and legs flopped alongside their bodies, they look like a napping kindergarten class.

Euromoney holds on-site yoga for its 500 New York-based employees twice a week as part of its corporate wellness program. The class, subsidised by the company, costs $5 to attend, and participants earn points that help them save up to $360 a year on their health insurance premiums.

Companies such as Euromoney are spending more on employee wellness initiatives, including ways for staffers to stay healthy at office. Workday walking and eating challenges, stress management programmes and in-office workouts are a few examples. Getting employees to live healthier lives, the theory goes, can save companies money. How much is up for debate: One Harvard study from 2010 found more than $3 in savings for every dollar spent, but more recent research by RAND put that figure at just $1.50. Still, many companies are expanding their wellness budgets. A March study by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health found that employers in the US will spend an average of $693 per person on wellness incentives in 2015, up from $430 five years ago.

Often, companies incentivise participation by offering discounted health insurance or free workouts. "They can make it available to everyone or they can offer it to highest-risk people first. It depends on the goal of the company and what they're trying to do," said Serena Puerta, the founder of Bootcamp Republic, which sets up corporate fitness programs at companies nationwide.

Everyone at Euromoney has access to yoga, which costs the company $3,000 for eight weeks of classes. In addition to the potential return on that investment, the immediate benefits of workplace exercise programmes include team building and enhanced morale, according to Janice Banaria, the HR and benefits administrator at Euromoney. "The idea of having happier, healthier employees is really why we do it," she said.

Doing an activity as embarrassing as working out, alongside co-workers, results in various forms of suffering. Accepted office etiquette is suspended during company workouts. But that discomfort is what makes it such a powerful bonding experience.

Workplace exercise programmes range from midday "no sweat" workouts to high-intensity boot camps. Instructors often offer the group three different levels for each exercise accommodating varying fitness levels. During a recent workout, for example, on a patch of grass next to Manhattan's West Side Highway, some employees panted through a modified version of an exercise called mountain climbers, while others completed sets without breaking a sweat.

In general, group fitness should help teams perform better at work, says Lindred Greer, a researcher who studies team dynamics at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. "If you have a deeper relationship with your co-workers, it's easier to understand what they're saying," she said.

But if team building is the ultimate goal, that not everyone participates isn't ideal. "If a pattern develops where a part of the team is doing something after work, they become more distant from the people who are not doing those activities," said Jeffrey Polzer, a researcher who studies organisational behaviour at Harvard Business School.