The Healthy Workplace Project: results of a hygiene-based approach to employee wellness

Purpose: An employee wellness program was evaluated to assess changes in germ transmission, absenteeism, and cost of infection-related illness among office-based employees.

Design: One-group pretest-posttest design, with intervention delivered for 90 days and measurement conducted over 1 year.

Setting: Employees of a large office space in Georgia.

Subjects: One thousand six hundred forty-five employees.

Intervention: The Healthy Workplace Project is a 90-day wellness program aimed to increase health and productivity of employees through educational and engagement activities focusing on improving awareness, recognizing infection-related illnesses, and reducing the spread of germs in the workplace.

Measures: Three types of data were collected: (1) bacterial audits through use of adenosine triphosphate monitoring of various work spaces; (2) self-report absenteeism data using the World Health Organization's Health and Work Performance Questionnaire; and (3) participant employees' medical claims/costs of infection-related minor illnesses.

Analysis: Frequencies and bacterial audit data; Wilcoxon signed ranks tests to determine changes in rates on absenteeism and health care costs.

Results: Bacterial audits demonstrated a reduction in contamination levels of 33% across all measured spaces. Absenteeism rates were reduced by 13%. Medical service utilization costs were not significantly reduced for individual employees over the project year.

Conclusion: Educational strategies and individual monitoring of germ transmission appears effective in improving employees' health and decreasing absenteeism.