Fit for business

HEALTH: Workers who are in good health are usually happier and more effective. But should employers encourage or even force workers to take more exercise, lose weight or stop smoking?

Multinational companies in particular offer programmes designed to improve their employees’ health. Unilever , the foods and personal care group, assessed its employees’ health two years ago in a confidential screening programme. The company found that more than half of its employees were overweight.

Now Unilever offers a pilot project called “Fit Business” that encourages workers to lose weight and to become more active. The company will be checking the blood pressure, body fat and cholesterol levels of people on its staff.

Companies save money by employing healthy people, says Henry Morgenbesser.

Some US companies actually force people to lose weight, to exercise or to stop smoking as a condition of employment. Such measures leave them open to anti-discrimination lawsuits. Yet according to lawyer Henry Morgenbesser of Allen & Overy in New York, the financial benefits of employing healthy people can outweigh the cost of legal action. “Employers calculate that by requiring people to take part in programmes, they might save, say, 20 per cent in avoided sickness absence and reduced premiums on private medical insurance,” Morgenbesser told the Financial Times.

Pitney Bowes , a multinational postage service company, gives its employees free entrance to fitness studios. It has also changed the menus in its company cafeterias to emphasize fruit and vegetables and made it harder to get sweet or fatty foods. For example, fruit is placed close to the checkout, and sweets are further away.

Still, there’s a limit to how much a company can do to control workers’ eating habits, says corporate medical director Brent Pawlecki. “The cookies aren’t easily reachable,” Dr Pawlecki comments. “But there isn’t a hand that comes out and slaps you for grabbing them.”

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