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Softball or spreadsheets?

Sam Wertheimer | Sunday 27th September 2009

Despite nursing an ongoing addiction to competitive sports, I decided to forgo yesterday's company softball game. A focus on short-term benefits motivated my choice. As a new employee hoping to impress superiors I wanted to get a start on next week's projects by forging ahead on some spreadsheets. While this seemed like a good choice at 5PM, by 8PM I began to doubt the decision. These doubts arose as a glance at the soda cans and pizza box on my desk reminded me of the long-term costs of my choice. A diet of junk food does my cardiovascular system no favors. Not only did I consume an excess of empty calories, I also missed the chance to recreate and forge social connections with coworkers. Thus my mental health likely suffered as well. Although I might overcome this single evening without vegetables, exercise, and conversation with some pickup hoops this weekend, forgoing the company outing took some toll on my health.

Did I make the right decision by staying at the office? A day later I'm still unsure. This is partly because quantifying the likely long-term health outcomes is difficult. Since my employer pays most of my health insurance premiums, I have few incentives to practice healthy behaviors in the short-term. Only when I get my quarterly review and hear bosses' opinions on the quality of my late night output, or visit J. Crew and realize I need larger pants will I fully understand the consequences.

Reminding employees of the long-term costs of a late night at the office should be simpler. Rather than waiting until some adverse health event, employees like me should have a way to readily compare the chances of praise from a boss with the chances of a hospital visit. (That is, other than forcing us to pay for health insurance. I'm not yet ready to give up my employer-sponsored coverage). Thankfully many employers agree. These companies realize that the value added by a workaholic employee might not outweigh the costs of the employee's later health-related absence or the price of treatment for the worker's hypertension and obesity. This realization has spurred employers to help workers quantify the long-term consequences of health-related practices. IBM for example offers $150 to employees that complete a wellness regimen. Other companies penalize unhealthy worker habits. Examples include Scott's Miracle-Gro, which requires smokers to pay a surcharge towards insurance premiums, and the Alabama legislature which raised controversy last year by requiring obese state employees to pay a "fat tax."

Although my employer currently lacks health-related incentives or penalties, they realize that encouraging employee wellness is good work. One director aims to ban cookies at meetings and speaks earnestly about his hope to replace conference room chairs with treadmills. Hopefully company leaders will also develop programs that help employees quantify the long-term impact of healthy choices. They already pay me to carpool to work - perhaps soon they will pay me to attend the company softball game.

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