There's a new blog in town called The Faculty Blog by a number of professors from the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Saul Levmore has written a coupled of posts in which he discusses "private contracts as strategies for self-control". Have a read of Obesity Regulation? and the follow-up More on Obesity and other Regulation.
Here's the deal (literally):
"Imagine a plan in which employees or students encouraged their employer or law school to make the following kind of offer: “We know that many of your days are sedentary, and we take an interest in your long-term health. We also know that most of you are eager to be fit. We invite you voluntarily to subscribe to our health partnership for three years. As a subscriber you will pay $2,000 per year into the plan. At the end of each month if you have met the plan’s goals with respect to weight and perhaps exercise (if it can be monitored, as might visits to particular gyms) for the month, you receive $200, so that someone who always makes the goals earns $400 on the $2,000 investment in the course of the year. Someone who misses the goals in two of the months breaks even. If you never meet the monthly goal, you will lose the $2,000 subscription – and you will have signed on to try again with another $2,000 the next year, because the plan runs in three-year cycles. Weight loss and maintenance is, after all, a long term endeavor.”
I've tried this one on a couple of people, and got the "what are you talking about?" look. I just can't imagine an employer saying to a newly hired employee, "so do you want part of our "healthy-lifestyle-incentive-plan? Your signature and $2000 of your own money gets you in."
Maybe there are other things that employers can do to encourage/reward employees and, by so doing, cutting into the cost of absenteeism?
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