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Top stories from the CVS Pharmacy® April Wellness Newsletter!

Wellness has become a fundamental part of a company's benefits program. 70% of employers now offer employees a general wellness program. This edition of the CVS Pharmacy® April Wellness Newsletter focuses on using rewards and incentives to encourage healthy behavior changes, resources on how to maintain engagement and secure long-term program success, CVS news and more.  Read below for more on what this edition has to offer.

Workplace wellness programs are beneficial to both employers and employees, but how much are wellness programs really adding to the bottom line? Many skeptics continue to argue that saving money on wellness programs is as plausible as finding that flying pig. But ROI is a narrow metric that doesn’t always portray the full story of a wellness program's success, not to mention the ROI debate has focused mainly on one type of wellness program, lifestyle management (think diet and exercise). Since ROI only tells half the story, how do we know what's working for our workplace wellness programs? Back in September, we discussed that
64% of corporate wellness administrators were using VOI to measure their program. While VOI has faced some scrutiny of its own, it measures the intangible benefits of wellness, such as employee morale, engagement, and productivity, in addition to hard ROI. More companies realize that increasing these intangibles can improve their culture and in turn increase their bottom line.

Stress in the workplace is costing U.S. employers a whopping $300 billion annually. The workplace is one of the most stressful environments for your employees and the World Health Organization has declared the negative consequences from stress a world-wide epidemic. Stress can be difficult to manage because there is no 'one-size fits all' solution for stress management. Stress is highly personalized and can vary widely, even in identical situations. Stress in the workplace can lead to accidents, absenteeism, employee turnover, and increased medical costs.

Employee wellness programs are becoming an increasingly important part of employee benefits packages. Knowing the different types of wellness programs in the market can help your HR staff have a better understanding of what your unique workforce needs are and how to best market the program to your employees. Having the optional benefit of a wellness program may not be at the top of a candidates list when deciding on what organization they want to work for, but providing a well organized, well-marketed program can help your organization stand out as one that values the health and well-being of their employees. Here are three of the most prevalent types of wellness programs.

 At the end of last year, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), held their annual Global Wellness Summit in Mexico City. GWI went into the summit showcasing their goal of providing an education foundation that focuses on informing both the public and private sectors about preventative health & wellness. At this year’s summit, GWI identified what they see as the top 10 future shifts in corporate wellness. Here are the shifts in corporate wellness they found most critical to corporate wellness programs: