Providing employee wellness plans to your workers can save you money and improve your company’s productivity. These programs are also good for reducing healthcare expenditures and increasing employee retention. To enjoy these benefits, business owners need a simple, easy way to integrate employee wellness programs into their day-to-day operations. Your payroll provider can quickly incorporate wellness plans into your normal payroll system.
The Advantages of Employee Wellness Programs
When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was introduced, it entailed additional healthcare regulations for employers. At the same time, it reduced the role of employee wellness programs by decreasing some of the incentives. For these programs to work, they need to be incentivized.
Under Section 125 plans, employers can offer wellness programs with a large enough incentive for workers to actually change their behaviors. By providing these plans, employees and employers can enjoy significant advantages.
How Employers Can Benefit
With the best employee wellness program, you can incentivize healthy behaviors in your employees at no net cost. This is done by utilizing payroll tax breaks and running your employee wellness program through your payroll system.
Employers benefit from employee wellness programs in a range of ways.
- Increase employee retention
- Lower payroll taxes
- Enhanced worker productivity
- Decrease health insurance premiums
- Improved employee morale
- Less workplace stress
- Better employee recruitment
- Higher employee engagement
Savvy small business leaders recognize the value of offering wellness programs. In fact, 74% of fast-growing small businesses offer one according to our 2024 HR Benchmark survey.
The Benefits for Employees
Employee wellness programs aren’t just advantageous for workplaces. They also provide significant benefits for employees. However, the only way for employees to enjoy these benefits is if they are active members of the plan. Because of this, it’s important to find a wellness plan that incentivizes employees to take part.
Once employees are actively involved in a plan, they can start to enjoy many different benefits.
- Reduced healthcare costs
- Better mental health
- Lower chances of developing a chronic illness
- Enhanced work-life balance
- Higher physical activity
- Healthier behaviors, such as a better diet
- Lower payroll taxes
With an employee wellness plan, your workers can get family telemedicine, health coaching, and assistance with behavioral healthcare. These types of programs offer biometric screenings, immunizations, health risk assessments, and disease management support. Plus, your workers can get input on fitness and nutrition, so they can begin leading healthier lifestyles.
The Benefits of Integrating Employee Wellness Programs Into Your Existing Payroll System
When you incorporate employee wellness programs into your payroll system, it saves you time and money. You don’t have to figure out how to do Section 125 deductions or indemnity payments. More importantly, you don’t have to personally handle these deductions for all of your employees.
For you and your workers, payroll integration is important because you are legally required to send in payroll taxes. If you have to calculate payroll taxes for Section 125 deductions separately, you could easily end up paying the wrong figure for your taxes. Incorporating Section 125 deductions into your existing payroll system means you can be confident that you are paying the right amount.
Integrating wellness programs into your payroll system is easier and more convenient than calculating your payroll taxes by hand. It enables you to get a tax break through your company’s Section 125 deductions. In addition, it reduces the amount of time you have to spend on providing employee benefits.
How to Streamline Wellness Programs Through Your Payroll
When you integrate your employee wellness program into your payroll system, it makes it easier to provide benefits to your workers. Through the Proactive Health Management Plan (PHMP) offered by Asure through Key Benefit Administrators, we can help you decrease your payroll taxes and improve your worker productivity. Best of all, this plan is available at no net cost to employers.
Payroll integration is incredibly easy. Once you opt into using the PHMP, you can immediately start providing comprehensive coverage to your workers. If you already use Asure for your payroll, setting up a PHMP for your employees only requires a couple of minutes of your time.
Afterward, our team runs the Section 125 deduction for you. Once your employees complete their activities each month, they can receive their indemnity claims. All of this happens through our payroll platform, so you don’t have to do any of the work.
For your wellness program to be effective, your employees need to play an active role. To help your workers take part, you may want to incorporate training materials into your onboarding manual or employee handbook. Then, train your workers on how they can access their wellness benefits and take part in the program. By teaching your workers how to use the employee wellness program, you can increase the chances that they will take part in it.
Get Started on Your Employee Wellness Program
By integrating employee wellness programs into your payroll system, you can enjoy a lower payroll tax burden and reduced insurance premiums. In addition to improving the health of your workers, you can increase their productivity and decrease your turnover rate.
Incorporating wellness plans into your payroll program doesn’t have to be challenging. To get started on your wellness program’s integration process, reach out to our team of HR and payroll experts today.