Corporate Gym Memberships (i.e. Paying Employees To Not Go To The Gym).

If you like paying for stuff your employees don't use - try a gym!

A 2005 study by two California researchers, titled "Paying Not to Go to the Gym," examined nearly 8,000 gym members' attendance over three years. You might be surprised to learn that 85% of users who bought a monthly contract were spending more money than if they paid on a per-use basis. That's because most members paid more than $70 per month but only visited the gym 4.8 times each month. They paid about $17 for each visit.

How effective were those 4+ visit per month at actually transforming members' health? It's anyone's guess, but chances are a 30 minute workout on the treadmill and a couple of half-hearted bicep curls are hardly enough to make a dent in the number of calories found in daily latte, scone or other weekday indulgence.

Fight!  This could get ugly:

The 300 Pound Gorilla:
Corporate Gym Membership

Weighing in at an average of $35-70 for each of your employees per month, this hometown favorite is sure to pummel employees with early cancellation fees when they realize that their 4 trips per month just aren't cutting the mustard.  And for you the employer?  Each attendee's 4 trips per month to make a trip to the sauna and catch up on sitcoms as they gingerly touch the pedals of a recumbent bike is never, never, ever going to make a dent in your health care or absenteeism costs.  I don't care what anyone else tells you.

 - VERSUS -

The Contender:
Your Company's Own Home Grown On-Site Program

Creating a simple on-site health and wellness program at your own company might not be the most sophisticated option, but is not a bad start.  It can often cost less than a catered dinner for one of your larger departments.  Use your network to find qualified presenters and set up a series of topics that are relevant to your workforce.  Pay the presenters and ask them not to sell to your employees (which will make people hate the classes).  If they are good, invite them back.  Get a team involved and have them help you promote the program through relentless word of mouth, emails, posters and anything else that will get people's attention - if only for a moment. 

Take the money that you would have spent on a corporate gym membership and offer it as an incentive for employees who attend a certain percentage of the seminars you hold, or, rotate incentives (i.e. anyone who comes to a seminar for the very first time qualifies for an incentive). 

True, this is not the most effective, expensive version of corporate wellness; however, it is a heck of a lot better than paying for something that no one uses.  Better yet, if they aren't using it you know it and can either:

1. find ways to promote better use, or,
2. drop the cost altogether and find a benefit with more universal appeal.

Editor's Note - It's hard to be humble when you're bloggin' straight out of Portland, Oregon.  Tanya Barham is the Founder and CEO of Recess Wellness, a company where all the staff works like little elves at Christmastime to transform their client's workplaces into healthy, happy, productive places akin to Santa's workshop at the North Pole.  Seriously.  Of course, Santa's fat, so they still have work to do.

Comments

[Paul Hebert]

Great post. I wonder how many companies realize the waste associated with their corporate plans for health club membership?

Another way to maybe both encourage attendance - and cut costs - put a set amount of dollars on a debit/gift card for a specific gym equal to the suggested number of times a person should go to the gym - and any amount left at the end of the month expires. Then provide updates to the card holder showing their number of visits and amount of money left. This should encourage participation. Once the employee gets past a certain point in their fitness regime - typically a month or two - when they show they are attending at the point where it makes financial sense, they can be moved to an annual membership.

The money that expires each month could be used as you suggested - for further incentives and wellness activities - or dropped to the bottom line for reduction in overall health care spending.

I'm sure some mathematician could come up with a model based on probabilities that would show the business case for this.

[Tanya]

Paul:

Great idea! I believe the better you can measure the better the results. My one rebuttal would be: just because someone visits the gym DOES NOT mean they are getting the right kind of exercise or information. Many trainers who give nutritional advice, for example, are peddling quackery - unnecessary supplements, or, diet plans that are too restrictive to be sustained (i.e. that involve shaving off 500 - nearly a third to a quarter) of someone's daily caloric intake.

Even if someone visits the gym and manages to avoid the shiesty products, how do we know that each visit isn't just to hit the tanning booth or lounge in the sauna? I know people who use their gym membership solely for those purposes.

Still I like your idea :)

[Allison]

Perhaps a more cost effective and efficient solution to the gym dilemma might be in offering the reimbursement incentive! have the employee pay for their own membership and if they keep the membership for more than three consecutive months give them an amount equal to 50% or cap it at a dollar amount. This way the owness is on the member/employee to pay out of pocket first and what's the point of doing that if you're not going to use it- a 50% reimbursement is hardly worth the effort to be dishonest about frequency and usage- but if one does really use the membership it's a terrific incentive and a nice intrinsict reward from the employer. Additionally, I think it will be a whole lot cheaper than 1) building a fitness center on site hoping everyone will use it- doubt it- unless a company institutes mandatory Phys Ed programs LOL. and 2)hiring a mathmetician to perform statistical analysis and create metrics for who? what? sounds too tedious to me- and if a company has that kind of money to burn- there's no need to squabble about the waste of money on the usage of gym memberships.