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The Birmingham News

December 28, 2005

 

Employees shed fat for fees

 

Weight-loss goals tied to cash, time off

 

By: Sharon Terlep

The Detroit News

 

CLARKSTON- Mich.

 

Looking to get some extra cash from the boss?  Forget logging long hours, brokering that big deal or sucking up at the company holiday party.

 

Try dropping 20 pounds.

 

Employers have begun dangling big incentives, such as cash bonuses and paid days off, to encourage workers to lose weight.  Clarkston-based Freedom One Financial Corp. is even handing out all-expense paid tropical vacations to employees who meet weight loss goals.

 

Pound-shedding payoffs are becoming more common as employers weighed down by soaring health care costs become increasingly preoccupied with slimming down their work force.

 

“It’s actually selfish.  When somebody feels good, they’re healthy, they work harder and they’re more focused,” Mark Wayne, president and CEO of Freedom One Financial Corp., said while standing among iron-pumping employees working out at the company gym.

 

Obesity costs American companies $56 billion in lost productivity caused by disability, illness and death, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Considering the high toll, some employers are more than willing to pay for a healthier crew.

 

For those who do, the reward often is more than a cheaper health care bill.  Employees in workplace weight loss programs tend to be more focused, cooperative and energetic, experts and employers involved in such programs say.

 

And for workers who have tried every fad diet and miracle pill to no avail, the peer pressure and camaraderie of workplace weight loss initiatives can be major motivators.

 

At work, you’re going to see people on a daily basis,” said Susan Randolph, president of the Atlanta-based American Associate of Occupational Health Nurses. “There’s that daily pressure.”

 

In the case of Financial One, nearly half of its 75 employees signed up for a weight loss challenge that runs through January.

 

It’s the third such competition in about two years. The result has been hundreds of pounds lost by workers.

 

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