Financial aspects of employee fitness programmes

Abstract

Growth has been particularly rapid in North America, where as many as 20% of major companies currently offer fitness facilities of varying sophistication. The stated intent has been to boost the morale of employees, or to improve health, rather than to make fiscal savings. But often there has been an underlying hope of improving productivity or containing rising medical costs. An economist may undertake a cost/benefit, a cost/utility, or a cost/effectiveness analysis of a work-site fitness programme. The cost/benefit approach has usually been applied. In this approach, programme expenditures are compared with the estimated monetary benefits, usually to persuade a company to begin, continue or expand its investment in fitness programming. A fitness programme may generate both costs and benefits for the government, the private sector and the individual participant. Participation in a programme is time consuming. Both individual and society lose benefits that might have accrued from an alternative use of the time that is invested in the programme.