Senior leadership is continuing to put an emphasis on improvingemployee health, according a survey by Willis North America'sHuman Capital Practice, a unit of Willis Group Holdings.

In fact, senior leadership commitment rose 42 percent in 2010,compared to 6 percent in 2009. Respondents also say the two mostimportant factors in the success of a workplace wellness programwere management support and strong organizational cultural support.Still, employers continue to have trouble successfully engaging theworkforce in wellness initiatives and faced barriers when measuring employee success.

"While it is encouraging to see organizational support at thesenior level significantly increasing, the survey indicates a needto focus programs on increased employee engagement," says CherylMealey, national practice leader, wellness consulting of WillisHuman Capital Practice. "Senior management is really starting toembrace the idea that our health impacts how we work, and how wework impacts our health."

Other key findings from the survey include:

• 53 percent of employers report having some sort of wellnessprogram, and of those, 57 percent describe their program as"basic."

• Health care costs continue to act as the motivator fororganizations to employ worksite wellness programs. Seventy-eightpercent of employers reviewed their health care cost trends beforeinstituting a wellness program.

• Approximately one-third of survey respondents do not thinkfinancial rewards should be used to promote healthy lifestyles, a15 percent jump over the 2009 results.

• Forty-four percent of participants say not enough time or staffwas the largest barrier to offering a wellness program, followed bybudget limitations at 43 percent.

• Management support and having a strong internal leaderchampioning wellness within the organization were rated the twomost important factors in the success of the wellness program.

• Twenty-eight percent of employers have implemented a precise,definite strategy to improve employee engagement, and of those, 64percent say their worksite wellness program is a critical elementof their overall employee engagement strategy.

• Thirty-eight percent survey respondents report not havingenough data to calculate the return on investment.

• The top factors respondents cite as necessary to improvingemployee engagement are increasing marketing and communication withpossible participants, setting more exact goals for achievement andemploying more coordinated efforts.