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Keeping Workers Healthy Pays Off at Dow Chemical ($$) 

Catherine M. Baase's bonus for this year depends in part on unusual criteria -- the health habits of employees at Dow Chemical Co.

Dr. Baase, Dow's global director of health services, and her staff of 160 can expect to earn larger performance bonuses if enough Dow employees lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more frequently or lower their stress levels. If those goals aren't achieved, the health staffers won't get the extra money. . . .

Dr. Baase says the bonus program evolved over a couple of years of conversations between her and senior executives, who wanted to focus on employee-health outcomes and "really work on accountability." Ultimately, they settled on a plan under which health staffers in each of 13 regions develop at least two goals for employee health from six categories, such as weight, exercise and tobacco use. The bonuses, which could reach $750 for an employee making $50,000, will depend on both the performance of an individual group, as well as the performance of all the groups.

One group, for instance, set a goal to enroll 25% of the smokers in its region in stop-smoking programs, and to get 25% of those participants to successfully quit smoking. Another group aims to get at least 10% of employees in its region to join a weight-loss program, and 65% of overweight participants to lose five pounds and keep the weight off for the year. Dr. Baase reviewed the goals to make sure they were sufficiently ambitious. (The company won't reveal the goals in specific regions for fear that the information would affect behavior and skew results.)

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