Several Spokane-area employers have put in place company wellness-incentive programs that are intended to encourage or reward employees who maintain good health or who are working to establish an active lifestyle.

The thought, those employers say, is that encouraging employees to improve or maintain their health increases productivity and reduces days away from the workplace due to illnesses. For active and well employees of some businesses here it could also mean a discount on their out-of-pocket health insurance fees.

Incentives for active employees typically involve benefits such as a discount on monthly health-insurance plan premiums, partial reimbursement for a gym memberships, and companywide weight-loss competitions.

Interest from both employers and employees in implementing such wellness programs has been increasing visibly in recent years, says Kevin Klein, manager of sales consultancy with Group Health Cooperative, the Seattle-based health-care plan provider, which has more than 133,000 enrollees in Eastern Washington.

"The interest employers have in promoting and fostering engagement in employees to keep them healthy and informed is what we are after," Klein says. "There is a lot more interest (in wellness incentives), so we are pleased to see that, since we are a preventive care organization."

Klein, who's based in Seattle, says that Group Health offers to its members a number of wellness services that are free and included as part of its plan coverage.

He says he has worked with a number of Spokane-area employers to help them understand those free wellness benefits, as well as advising businesses here on other ways to encourage their employees to become more active.

"I'll discuss what kind of incentive programs would work in their company, and I share best practices from what I have seen," he says, adding, "Premium reduction for engagement in wellness activities is the best format for getting engagement."

Some of Group Health's free wellness services include a health risk assessment profile its plan members can complete and that's accessible by in-network providers as part of patients' medical records. Another inclusive service is lifestyle coaching for members who may need assistance or professional advice in areas such as tobacco cessation, nutrition, physical activity, stress, and depression, Klein says.

Another way Inland Northwest employers are able to track and thus reward their employees' progress toward a healthier physical state is through Spokane-based Inland Northwest Health Services' health@work program.

INHS established the program in 2004, and businesses that are interested in starting an internal wellness program can consult with INHS health experts to figure out the best type of program for their employees, says health@work's director Emily Fleury.

"We have something for all budgets and business size," she says. "We have a client who has seven employees, and we have some with more than 1,000 employees and everything in between."

Through health@work, companies in the area also can offer their employees the choice to participate in an annual or biannual biometric health screening, which measures markers of health such as blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, and body mass index, Fleury says.

Depending on how many employees at a company opt to have that screening done, she says the cost ranges between $35 and $50 a person, adding that most employers cover those fees.

Numerica Credit Union offers its employees the chance to participate in those biometric screenings offered by INHS at the credit union's annual health and benefits fair held each November at its administration offices, at 14610 E. Sprague, says company spokeswoman Kelli Hawkins.

Hawkins says that between 2010 and last year's health fair, the overall percentage of Numerica employees who were screened and found to have a healthy cholesterol level increased from 60 percent to about 76 percent.

Also, during the same time period, Numerica employees who had what's considered a normal blood pressure reading increased from around 50 percent to nearly 78 percent of all employees who had that screening done, she says.

Healthy body mass index (BMI) scores that also are recorded during a biometric screening—BMI is the ratio between a person's height and weight and serves as an indicator of disease risk—also improved significantly for Numerica employees, she says.

Of the credit union's total 311 employees—130 of those employees work at its Spokane Valley headquarters—Hawkins says about 100 people usually attend its annual health fair during which the biometric screenings are offered.

"That tells you that a lot of these programs human resources is telling us to do, we are participating in and getting healthy at work," Hawkins says.

Aside from its yearly health fair and screenings, Hawkins says Numerica also offers several ongoing activities and incentive to its employees to encourage them to live healthily.

She says that every Wednesday the company's human resources department sets up a projector in its headquarters' cafeteria for employees to play Nintendo Wii video games that are intended to get people moving and on their feet, such as a multiplayer game called Just Dance. For that game, up to four players follow and mimic the dance movements of an avatar on the screen and earn points for being accurate in their movements.

That weekly event at Numerica has been dubbed "Wii Wednesday," Hawkins adds.

She says Numerica has been encouraging its employees to become more conscious about their physical health through various company incentive programs for more than five years now.

For Numerica employees who prefer to work out at a gym or fitness club, the credit union will reimburse them for one-quarter of their monthly dues if they're members of an Oz Fitness facility and go to the gym at least four times a month. If an employee goes to the gym at least of eight times a month, Numerica will pay them back up to half of their monthly fee, Hawkins says.

Employees of Jubilant HollisterStier Contract & Manufacturing Services, the drug and allergy product maker based in North Spokane at 3525 N. Regal, receive similar reimbursements for going to a fitness facility, says Arlie Robinson, the company's human resources manager.

Robinson says HollisterStier will reimburse its employees up to $150 of their annual gym membership just for documenting with its HR department that they have one, but if employees log up to eight trips to the gym a month they'll get $240 back each year from the company.

She says HollisterStier has offered various wellness incentives and programs to its employees for more than 20 years. About five years ago, though, Robinson says she developed a new wellness program called My Life to monitor employees' health and to encourage them to be more active.

"The frustration had been that we would bring speakers out and do walks and competitions, and the people who were most interested were the healthy ones, and we weren't getting the attention of the less healthy," Robinson says. "So I implemented a program to reach out to the healthy ones but also to encourage the less healthy to take part in their own physical health."

Participation in the My Life program is optional, Robinson says, and employees at HollisterStier who do opt in are placed in one of three different tiered categories based on the results of biometric screening results that take place every six months. She says HollisterStier also enlists INHS's health@work program to perform those tests.

Employees who meet the health requirements of the program's top tier, which Robinson has named Maintain My Life, receive 20 percent off their monthly health insurance premium, with that discount paid by the company.

The middle group, called Improve My Life, is for employees who Robinson says might not always make the best nutrition and exercise choices. At the bottom tier is a classification called Change My Life for those who are at a high risk of developing a health condition or disease.

She says that if an employee meets the various weight, BMI, and other health screening requirements that would allow them to move up to a higher tier group, that person would be rewarded for their efforts with 10 percent off their monthly plan premium.

Of the more than 580 employees at HollisterStier, Robinson says about 120 participate in the My Life wellness program.

"It's a combination of healthy people who want the discount and then those who are striving to get to a better lifestyle and health status to get that discount," Robinson says of the program's participants.

Robinson says, though, that some of the employees who don't participate in the company's wellness program are taking steps to better attend to their health.

She says interest in the program has increased each time the biannual biometric screenings are offered.

Another step Robinson says she took around the time the My Life program was implemented to help employees succeed in their personal health goals was the removal of candy and junk food from vending machines at HollisterStier's facilities.

"We have seen some remarkable results; we have seen a real change in the culture," she says. "A lot of people have lost weight. Employees take walks during their lunch break, and we have a lot of employees who ride their bikes to work."