Benefits of Providing Gym Memberships to Employees

Improves Health and Wellbeing of Employees

• Medical research has established beyond doubt that regular exercising promotes health and wellbeing. A corporate gym membership goes a long way in improving the health and wellness of employees, thus cutting down the medical expenses incurred by companies on their employees. According to the Mayo Clinic, the benefits of regular physical activity are as follows:
•  Weight reduction or control.
•  Prevention or management of several health problems like stroke, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, cancer (of various types), arthritis, and falls.
• Improvement of cognitive function.
•  Improvement of mood.
•  Boosting of energy.
• Promotion of better and sound sleep.
• Improvement of sex life.
• According to the US National Library of Medicine, the other benefits of exercising regularly are as follows:
• Helps to quit smoking.
• Strengthening of bones and muscles.
• Increases chances of living longer.
• It has been seen that expensive gym memberships often deter people from employing a healthier lifestyle. By providing corporate gym memberships to employees, companies encourage their employees to look after their health and wellbeing.

Reduces Sick Days Taken by Employees

• According to the JS Benefits Group, a top employee benefits consultant in the US, "employees who are exercising regularly will generally be healthier than those who aren’t. They will tend to get sick less often and will thus take fewer leaves from work." A corporate gym membership ensures that less number of employees call in sick.
• A study conducted on a focus group of a 1,000 people "found that staying active nearly halved the odds of catching cold viruses" and made the infection less severe.
• According to official data, "more than 131 million working days were lost to sickness in the UK in 2017, including 13 million working days lost to stress, depression or anxiety."
• According to a report released by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI), illness-related lost productivity costs employers in the US a whopping $530 billion per year. This is in addition to the $880 billion spent by US employers every year on the health care benefits of employees and their dependents.
• The same report has also stated that employees in companies in the US are "absent about 893 million days due to illness" and US companies "incur an estimated 527 million lost work days due to impaired performance" of their employees. This totals more than 1.4 billion days of employee absence in US companies every year due to sickness.

Summary of the Early Findings Relevant to the Goals

• During the one hour allotted for our initial research, we were able to present two benefits of corporate gym memberships on both employees and employers. Our research has established that there is considerable information available in the public domain about the benefits of corporate gym memberships. However, further research on the subject will entail allotment of additional hours of research.
• Please note that Wonder is a secondary research company and does not publish any white papers. Our research reports are presented on the standard Wonder format (like this initial research).
• Please select one or more of the following proposals if further additional research on the subject is desired. If there are any specific comments, that comment should be provided beside the proposal and NOT as a customized next step. This will ensure that the original researcher continues the additional research.
• Since there was no mention of any geographical focus in the chat transcript, we assumed a global focus. If a specific geographical focus is desired, say the US or the UK, that will have to be clearly communicated to us alongside any of our proposals. Otherwise, unless specified, we will proceed with additional research with a global focus.