For many employers, the term “Wellness” is used to encapsulate a philosophy or an approach to employee benefits. In other words, the goal of a benefits program is to improve the overall well-being of employees and their families.
Achieving Well-being
But what does that term wellness really mean? What are the determinants? How do you measure employee well-being and what sort of programs can you put in place to improve it?
I’ve heard it said that you can tell a lot about a person by what they do with their wallet. In our life, I would say that’s pretty accurate. A few years ago if someone went through our checkbook and debit card receipts, there is would be a pretty consistent pattern tracking what we value most highly. Repetitive expenditures after essentials are traveling to hang out with our adult “kids”, charitable stuff and keeping my wife’s horticultural degree in bloom by regular visits to the local nursery.
In all my years of being hanging around with professionals that consider themselves to be financial experts, I’ve never found anyone who could provide a logical explanation for how and why markets move in one direction or another? But it seems that either a general climate of confidence or fear are certainly leading indicators.
For example, it is interesting that the markets pay close attention to a concept that is anything but logical or analytical. It’s called “consumer confidence.” Webster’s dictionary tells us that confidence is “a state of confident hopefulness that events will be favorable.”
