Imagine working for a company where each year employees receive 20 days free backup emergency child care - unexpected times when the nanny is sick, perhaps, or the school shuts down for an emergency.

Or consider having a medical clinic at your company headquarters with 50 health-care people on staff - doctors, nurses, and other specialists - who see, treat and have an employee back to work in 20 minutes on average.

Sounds like a sweet deal for the employee, right? It is. But it can also be a great reward for the employer and a multimillion-dollar boon for the respective companies offering the programs.

Amy Hanen, a human resources VP for CIBC, and Jeff Chambers of the U.S.-based SAS Institute will share their perspectives on this issue at the upcoming ninth annual Health, Work & Wellness Conference 2005 to be held Oct. 20-22 in Montreal. The pair will address organizational health in the workplace and how a system-wide approach benefits their respective companies' bottom lines.

Photo courtesy of SAS Institute
SAS Institute employees take advantage of the company's fitness centre, which includes a 10-lane swimming pool.

Chambers, VP of human resources at software intellectual property firm SAS and the conference's keynote speaker, says the company has a healthy vision for the workplace - including its onsite medical clinic, allowed under American legislation.

"The only way we can produce something to sell to make money is by having great, talented people. The asset resides in their heads," he says.

"We really have to spend a lot of time on the care and feeding of our corporate asset, so we can be profitable."

Based in Cary, N.C., Chambers says that in a competitive intellectual property industry where average annual turnover is 15 to 20 per cent, SAS loses three per cent of its staff annually. But the company also retains 98 per cent of its clients, he adds.

"If you look at how we do business with our customers and how we treat our employees, you will find they are mirror images of each other."

Simply put, clients and employees require an investment by SAS that produces long-term relationships, Chambers explains. That relationship is illustrated by its new onsite health-care centre, a facility that includes three physicians, nine nurse practitioners, and other support staff, about 50 people in total.

The centre essentially handles the primary health-care issues of more than 85 per cent of the 4,000 employees at SAS headquarters. Last year, the centre saw 46,000 office visits with each employee averaging 20 minutes away from work versus a two-hour offsite visit.

"If we can see you and get you back to work in 20 minutes versus two hours, at 46,000 visits, you are talking eight figures in productivity savings," Chambers says. "Those are the things (tangible benefits) we can prove.

"Do our employees get sick less often because they have access to free onsite health care? While everybody else's health-care costs have gone up, ours have stabilized."

Long term, SAS believes that ongoing medical care will help prevent the instances of major health claims caused by illness such as cancer and diabetes.

Jeff Chambers

The company's medical centre, like its child day-care centre (it opened in 1981 when it wasn't fashionable) and the fitness centre (including a 10-lane pool), all contribute to a culture of wellness - and loyalty. Chambers says a case study on SAS done through the Stanford business school showed it saved $60-$80 million annually because of low turnover.

The saving isn't just the cost of replacing an employee, he explains. It's many things: The ability to get products to market faster; knowledge retention; serving customers better; and, as a well-known employer of choice, it creates a steady flow of job applicants in a tight labour pool.

In Toronto the CIBC's Hanen, VP of human resources, policy and governance, says her company has also seen financial savings and increased loyalty since it became serious about organizational health in the mid-1990s.

The first initiative, what Hanen calls a great "leap of faith," still astounds many HR professionals.

A decade ago, CIBC revamped its return-to-work program. Historically when someone was ill, CIBC required an explanation from an employee's doctor as to why they should take a leave. "We said to the employee, 'We don't need a doctor's note anymore. We believe you. If you are not well, then you're not well.' " Seemingly open to abuse by some 42,000 bank employees worldwide, that hasn't been the case. In the first year, comparing the policy change on strictly an apples-to-apples basis, CIBC saw a reduction in total days lost of 29 per cent. The average claim duration for short-term disability cases dropped by 32 per cent.

Hanen says that instead of a doctor talking to CIBC's administrators, the employee now meets with a manager and an employee assistance program (EAP) facilitator to understand the employee's current limitations, the expected length of absence and the possibility that the limitation would allow the employee to return to work part-time. The facilitator ensures the conversation remains focused on abilities and resolution in a positive way, Hanen says.

"Those kinds of conversations never happened before. We found that when people stay attached to the work environment, stayed in conversation with their manager and co-workers, they are much more likely to return to work, feel needed and often return more quickly."

Similarly, an emergency backup day-care program is well received by parents and non-parents alike.

CIBC opened the day-care centre in Toronto in September 2002, free to parents whose normal child care could be interrupted for up to 20 times a year due to circumstances such as illness, school closures, etc.

"It's exceeded our expectations," Hanen says. The program is offered by CIBC in U.S. cities and will soon be expanded to 11 cities in Canada.

CIBC has saved $1.8 million over three years through the day care, days that employees otherwise wouldn't have attended work. However, that's a narrow measurement and doesn't address the benefits in morale, stress management, productivity, recruitment and retention (CIBC turnover rates are lower than the benchmark of financial institutions).

"I have had employees say to me that once they've used this, it would take a lot of money to go to another company that didn't have it," Hanen says.

"The typical feedback we get from non-parents is that it's great because they can rely on their co-workers. They have a contingency plan."

Deborah Jones, founder and chair of this year's Work & Wellness Conference, says companies such as SAS and CIBC constantly surface as models for other organizations to emulate. Unfortunately, she adds, they remain in the "minority of companies that get it."

Based in Vancouver, Jones has a master's degree specializing in health promotion and started her business, Well Advised Consulting, in 1991.

Even though there is awareness about the benefits of organizational health, Jones continues to be disturbed by trends such as the longer hours Canadians face at work.

She says European studies debunk the North American myth that working longer hours increases productivity. And while companies might offer fitness programs or smoke-cessation seminars ("all good things"), if they aren't getting at the overall symptoms of stress and the core issues that affect attendance - morale and productivity - it doesn't matter how many programs are in place.

Many middle managers who will be attending this year's Montreal conference understand the need for a defined health strategy that integrates with the business plan.

What they don't know is how to get senior management to buy in.

"You hear a lot of stories about senior leaders talking the talk, but not walking it," Jones says. "It's their behaviour that affects everyone else. If the boss is there to seven o'clock at night, everyone feels they should be too."

She notes that while large organizations have employee assistance programs and a smattering of wellness programs in place, only a minority of companies know how to create a culture where people want to be at work and be productive.

As companies such as SAS have found, it's a win-win strategy.

A couple of years ago, when CBS's 60 Minutes television program profiled SAS and its corporate culture, an employee said that if someone offered to double his salary he wouldn't even think about leaving.

And why would he?

Medical clinics, big fitness areas, ongoing training and other programs make it a seemingly ideal place to be.

Chambers, however, emphasizes that individual programs such as the medical centre aren't just about trying to be nice.

"It's not about doing everything for the employees," he says. "It's about doing what's right for the business. That's why it works for us."

Web Watch: www.sas.com
www.cibc.ca
www.healthworkandwellness.com

(Mike Dempster can be reached at miked@businessedge.ca)