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Motorola - Global Wellness Initiatives (2002)

Description

More than 56,000 U.S. employees, their family members and Motorola retirees benefit from Motorola’s wellness programs. They are offered as part of a state-of-the-art rewards package that continually evolves based on employees’ needs and often exceeds their expectations.

Program Strategies and Goals
Since its founding, Motorola has demonstrated commitment to the health, well-being and personal growth of employees, their families and the communities where they live and work. Our long-term wellness strategy continues to focus on preventive care, healthy living, high-quality care, employee satisfaction and consumer education. Wellness program goals focus on:

  • Enhancing education, prevention, and wellness strategy and design

  • Demonstrating return-on-investment to continuously evaluate wellness impact

  • Advocating a healthy culture within Motorola and the external community in our goal to attract and retain key talent;and

  • Integrating and aligning benefits with Motorola business to support business/HR clients.

Nature of Interventions
In addition to the preventive focus of Motorola’s Health Advantage Plan medical plan, additional wellness programming emphasizes employee awareness, assessment/screening and behavior change through on-site group education, self-directed programs, telephonic counseling and decision support service. Support programs/policies include:

  • Disease management (i.e., asthma, cancer, depression, diabetes, infectious disease)

  • Flu immunizations, cancer screenings (mammograms, prostate), smoking cessation

  • Health screenings and health risk appraisals

  • 24X7 nurse telephone line, health fairs

  • Back care

  • On-site/external wellness centers

  • Children’s aerobics and nutrition

  • Stress management, shiftwork wellness

Staffing
Part of Motorola’s Human Resources organization, the Wellness Shared Service team consists of 35 full-time and 18 part-time employees. Additionally, various other task force members and wellness site representatives throughout North America partner with the team to integrate wellness programs, including representatives from Employee Assistance Program, Environmental Health and Safety, Employee Relations and Occupational Health Resources.

Funding Source
Established in 1996, the Work/Life and Wellness Fund grants $6 million annually for the development of new best-in-class work/life and wellness programs. This fund was developed based on savings realized in implementing a new health management program that focuses on preventive care. All new programs must be business value-added, demonstrate a return on investment and have national application.

Motorola leads a strategic, data-driven Wellness Shared Service approach throughout the corporation to promote health and well-being for all Motorolans, their family members and Motorola retirees. The focus is on evidence-based programs—those wellness initiatives that have been deemed effective by medical specialty organizations. Evaluation plays an integral role in both our philosophy and our programming for continuous improvement.

We utilize the following evaluation strategies, tools and methodologies designed to assess actual program impact and subsequent return on investment for the corporation: aggregate health reports, claims data, cost savings, customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups, health behavior change, interest surveys, need assessments, program utilization and other data sources that adapt to changing business needs over time. Standards for evaluation of data are established utilizing key internal and external liaisons. Highlights include:

Wellness Reimbursement Initiative
Wellness Centers operate at 15 major U.S. Motorola facilities with membership fees completely covered for active employees and a minimal fee for retirees. Employees who do not have access to an on-site Motorola Wellness Center (or choose to use a non-Motorola facility for any reason) may utilize the company’s Wellness Reimbursement Benefit of $240 (minus applicable tax) to help cover membership fees at qualified external fitness centers.

A recent U.S. study completed by the Motorola Wellness Initiatives team proves that an investment in wellness pays off in a big way for both employees and Motorola. The three-year baseline study focused on employees who regularly used the U.S. on-site Motorola Wellness Centers or used the reimbursement benefit for membership at external, non-Motorola fitness centers. The results were powerful—for every $1 Motorola invests in Wellness benefits, $3.93 is saved. For the U.S. in 2000, that meant a $6,479,673 savings! The study also showed that:

  • Participating employees see a nominal 2.5 percent increase in annual aggregate health care costs compared with an 18 percent annual aggregate increase for non participants

  • Participating employees and Motorola enjoy an approximately $6.5 million annual savings in medical expenses for lifestyle-related diagnoses (e.g., obesity, hypertension, stress) compared with non-participants

  • Motorola saves nearly $10.5 million annually in disability expenses compared with non-participants

Flu Vaccination Program
In 2001, 13,159 individuals (employees, dependents, retirees and contractors) participated in our corporate flu vaccination program, which was a 45% increase of participants from 2000. 86% of the participants responded that they were satisfied with the program overall and appreciate the convenience of the program. Wellness Initiatives determined that Motorola identified a return on investment of approximately 1.2:1.2 for the 2001-2002 flu season by using the conservative model from Achieves of Internal Medicine.

Health Advantage Plan (HAP) Program
This preventive healthcare plan emphasizes and supports proactive patient/physician partnerships, screenings and positive lifestyle choices. Of the active population, 74.79% of employees choose to participate in HAP over HMOs and the basic indemnity plan.

To remain eligible for HAP, employees must complete a health screening once every two years, which measures height, weight, body composition, blood pressure and blood composition (triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL and ratio). For convenience, Motorola administers on-site screenings at over 50 Motorola locations. On-site participants are offered additional testing options including bone density, Colocare®, glucose, Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test, and the Health Power Profile, an innovative Palm Pilot™ prevention-focused lifestyle analysis.

During 2001, 21,015 participants were screened during the on-site events. Overall, our data demonstrated that this was an average healthy population, as compared to national norms. Cholesterol levels of over 200 were identified for 45% of the population (13% had cholesterol levels above 240). Thirty-nine females and 29 males were found to be at over two times the average risk for heart disease.

Of the participants, 4,206 ordered screenings for prostate cancer. Eighty-one were found to have abnormal results. Prostate screening increased 3.7% over the previous year and abnormal results decreased by 2.4%.

The Health Power Profile questionnaire was completed by 20,419 participants with 71% demonstrating that they were successfully managing all of the controllable risk factors.