WELCOME January 15, 2001 Issue

To Our Readers

Mary Trammell

Wellness. It's a relatively new term, coined by corporate America in the 1970s to describe the programs companies were beginning to set up to address employee absenteeism, boost employee morale, and reduce employee healthcare costs. All this, of course, was supposed to help with the bottom. line. And, over the past two decades, it has.

But these fast-proliferating wellness programs are doing something else. They're focusing in a new way on the "whole person." They're targeting workers' mental and spiritual, as well as physical, well-being. With this in mind, companies are offering recreational and educational opportunities. They're providing fitness centers, basketball courts, and swimming pools—as well as seminars on parenting, nutrition, stress reduction, goal setting, creativity. Some are offering seminars on learning to laugh, and to handle sticky workplace situations with a sense of humor. And some are offering spirituality and prayer groups.

Caring for the whole person is effective and profitable, according to most participating corporations. "Overall, we see a trend toward a reduction in sick time," says

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