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Wellness start-up brings the concept to corporations
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: July 22, 2014
According to a recent survey by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH)/Fidelity Investments, corporations have substantially increased their investments in employee wellness programs in the past five years.
This fits into the experience of Kimberly Hemminger, RN, BSN, founder of the 13-year-old company Wellness Works For You (www.makingwellnesswork.com), which supplies onsite wellness programs to a number of companies in Northeast Ohio.
“Three years ago, there was virtually no corporate budget for wellness (among local companies),” said Hemminger, 50. “Now, there is.”
Nationally, 2014, the NGBH study found, three out of four corporate employers plan to extend some form of wellness programs to their companies, amounting to offer an average financial incentive of $500 per employee, up from less than $350 in 2010.
In particular, the study found that corporations have doubled their investment in eating and other food-oriented wellness programs in the last five years.
But when Hemminger began her business, she had to create a market.
After she received her nursing degree from Kent State University, “I started out at Akron General in intensive care,” she said. “It soon became clear to me that the focus should be on prevention, rather than curing after the fact. To me, 90 percent of the people in ICU were there because they didn’t take care of themselves, in one way or another.”
So, with young children at home, and one yet to come, and with the support of her family, Hemminger decided to carve out a new business model.
“At that time, it was a really hard sell,” Hemminger said. “Nobody had budgets or wanted to do it.”
But, she said, “I also wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and, with this idea, I could do both. The business grew at a perfect rate,” she said, for the life that she wanted to lead.
Today, Hemminger’s business keeps her as busy as she wants to be. “About five years ago, all of a sudden, everyone wanted a wellness program, and had a budget. Now, I’m really busy.”
The basis of the business is her nursing work. She spends much of her time onsite at various businesses around the area, offering health coaching, nursing and consulting services to businesses as diverse as the Gardner Pie Company, Summit Racing Equipment and the United Way.
One of her many personal onsite services is “Ask the Nurse,” where an employee can visit with her for some time for a personal consultation in fitness, nutrition, and disease management counseling.
As her business has grown, so has her ability to offer more programming for corporations. The company now has a half-dozen or more experts that it can offer to corporations to create custom-designed wellness programs.
Among the services that Wellness Works For You now offers are onsite flu vaccines, group exercise, cardio and yoga, “lunch and learn” presentations on many topics by a number of experts, health and fitness coaching, executive health coaching, and various educational programs, including those on drug-free workplaces.
Wellness Works For You also presents a number of nutritionally-based and other food programs from a staff of regional experts, including personal and group nutrition advice, healthy cooking classes (and a smoothie bar), and a “Health at Every Size” program.
The company also runs several health fairs every year for clients.
The company also sponsors “health challenges,” which could involve the entire company in anything from stress management to quitting smoking.
“The challenges focus on helping employees make sustainable change that will improve their health,” said Hemminger.
She knows whereof she speaks in her closest relationships, in fact. She started out, many years ago, changing the eating habits of her family.
“I decided to make one change a year in our diet,” about the time that she started her business, she said. “We started with switching to organic fruits and vegetables. The second year, we switched to grass-fed meat.” Each subsequent year has brought another dietary change, including household chemicals, body products, and so on.
Even though Hemminger said that business is good, and expanding, she does not want to lose the one aspect of the business that she credits for its success—the personal touch.
What is important, she said, is personal, one-on-one support, and ongoing contact.
“The key to helping people become healthier is to make the programs as personal as possible,” she said.