Twelve Years Experience of a Fitness Program for the Salaried Employees of a Toronto Life Assurance Company

Organization Setting. Twelve years operating experience of the Canada Life Assurance employee fitness program is reviewed. This program offers an onsite facility at a downtown office with some 1,200 employees. Program Rationale. Initial corporate motivations included the marketing of a health-related product, managerial interest, and government and university support. Program Design. A 250 square meter basement facility offers employees a fitness-centered lifestyle program. Members can use the gymnasium and participate in two to three, 30 to 45 minute exercise sessions per week led by two fitness professionals and lay assistants at a time of their choosing. The cost of developing the gymnasium area for the program was about $175,000, or $700 per square meter of floor space, measured in 1990 Canadian dollars. The current operating budget of the facility is about $110,000 per year, with "free" occupancy of the facilities. The 400 members each pay $55 per year, and the company provides an operating subsidy of about $220 for each member. Program Implementation and Impact. The program was implemented by a free fitness testing program in the fall of 1977. Current onsite participation is about 13% of eligible staff, but participation in community-based exercise programs has increased from 16% to 26% of employees since initiation of the program. Use of the Canadian Health Hazard Appraisal instrument suggested that frequent participants improved their personal lifestyle, leading to a two-year reduction of appraised age in male subjects. However, the program has had only a marginal impact upon physical condition and lipid profile, except in a small minority of members. Medical insurance claims were lowered after introduction of the program, the response in the first year reflecting mainly gains in perceived health. Early economic analyses suggested a substantial impact upon organizational effectiveness. The largest gain was a reduction of employee turnover among program participants, and an advantage of 8% per year has been sustained compared to nonparticipants. The impact of the program upon absenteeism has been limited to enthusiastic participants, with at most a 0.13% payroll saving for the company as a whole. An early analysis further suggested a 2.7% program-related gain of corporate productivity. Conclusions. It may be concluded that despite a favorable corporate en-