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Workforce: “When O’Neal Industries launched a comprehensive wellness initiative in 2011, measuring the program’s success was a critical goal. But O’Neal executives wanted to know more than just participation rates and claims data — the most obvious markers of a successful wellness effort. They wanted to understand the link between smoking and workplace injuries, and the connection between arthritis and absenteeism, among other measures. In other words, they wanted to know exactly how health care costs were affecting their bottom line.”

“O’Neal set its sights on measuring the value of wellness. To do that, it is looking beyond medical and pharmacy claims data and participation rates to create a broader picture of what is driving health care costs. O’Neal is also studying sick days, short-term and long-term disability claims, workers’ compensation, and lost time at work to manage both health and productivity.”

“Surprisingly, with the push for data-driven results, it’s still an elusive goal for most employers. While about 80 percent of companies with more than 1,000 employees offer wellness programs, more than half of these companies do not measure their return on investment, according to a 2012 survey by Automatic Data Processing Inc. Experts say that information overload — the sheer amount of data available for the picking — makes it hard to know what to measure and what it means.”