Working out is no sweat for employees at Laureate Education.
The Baltimore-based company, with offices in Harbor East, shares the same building as the Maryland Athletic Club’s downtown location. And since the MAC opened last fall, Laureate has offered to pay $10 each month of an employee’s membership fee, which the MAC matches, as part of Laureate’s corporate wellness program. The average MAC membership is about $100 a month.
About 35 percent of Laureate’s employees participate in the program, said Ed Drumm, Laureate’s vice president of human resources and administration.
“It’s a great recruiting tool,” Drumm said. “I think everyone would like to have some reason to get out of the office and work out.”
With health care costs ever increasing, more firms like Laureate are investing in corporate wellness programs, encouraging their employees to stay physically fit. Company wellness programs can reduce employee health costs by 20 percent to 55 percent, according to research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“The only real cure for the health care crisis is prevention,” Tim Rhode, owner of the MAC, told Baltimore business representatives this week at a presentation about corporate wellness at the Hilton Garden Inn.
“Good health is good business,” Rhode said. “Exercise is the one thing that can reduce your susceptibility to illness and disease, and that, in turn, can help reduce health care premiums.”
About 68 percent of employees are overweight in the United States, and an obese employee annually costs his employer an additional $460 to $2,500 in medical expenditures and absenteeism, Rhode said.
Offering employee health incentives can increase worker productivity and enhance a company’s ability to attract and retain good employees, Dr. David Satcher, the former surgeon general and assistant secretary of health, said during the presentation.
“Corporate America is in a position to provide those opportunities, incentives and awards to people who spend eight to 10 hours a day at work,” Satcher said. “We ought to at least provide a situation that’s conducive to healthy living.”
