In response to rapidly rising employee health care costs, many companies have launched various wellness initiatives in an attempt to improve the health of their employees.
The increased interest in workplace wellness has resulted in sellout crowds at the annual Worksite Wellness Conference in Waukesha.
“The conference keeps growing,” said Dick Tillmar, a partner in Diversified Insurance Services Inc. and co-chair of the health care team of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC). “We expect around 350 people to sign up this year, which would be a sellout.”
This will be the fifth year in a row that the event has sold out, Tillmar said.
The 17th annual Worksite Wellness Conference will be held Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Country Springs Hotel, 2810 Golf Road, Waukesha. The conference will be hosted by the Wellness Council, a nonprofit organization representing 350 Wisconsin companies and more than 400,000 employees.
The conference will consist of over a dozen speakers presenting information ranging from benchmarks of success in worksite health promotion to the psychology behind effective wellness programs.
The evidence of the growing interest in worksite wellness can be seen in the amount of new employee wellness operations that have been started over the last few years, Tillmar said.
The growing interest in worksite wel”Four years ago, we were running this conference to see how it goes, but now people are trying to learn all they can about worksite wellness,” Tillmar said.
Although not much about the conference has changed over the years, the level of expertise among the speakers has continuously improved to meet with the growth in interest of the subject matter, he said.
The speakers at the conference will cover more specific issues such as preventing depression in the workplace and legal issues related to tobacco-use policies, as well as other information about wellness.
“The conference is targeted for senior management staff,” said Tillmar. “In order to make wellness work in the workplace, the senior management has to buy on.”
For additional information about the conference, call (414) 291-9355.
