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I wonder what they are paying UNLV for the memberships and if it would be cheaper to stay with the private sector gym versus UNLV. Please note, I work in supply chain and know that nothing is "free." They are paying UNLV something for those memberships and I wonder if they negotiated a discount for UNLV and if they could have just done the same with 24 hour fitness. I would have done a survey of employees to see where they worked out and why; if they preferred 24 hour fitness; I'd go to 24 hour fitness and ask them to lower their price by 50-60%. Most of the time when I do this, the organization does what I want so they don't lose the money/business.
I have worked for organizations that provided gym memberships at universities and university gyms aren't as convenient and there are a lot of "kids" running around all the time. They also don't have as much equipment at some universities. Not sure if UNLV is like that. During that time, I took advantage of a discount to join a non-university gym because it was mostly adults aged 25 and up and they had more workout equipment than the university (which did have a nice facility but the workout area was not as large/nice with weights/machines as the private sector place. They also didn't have 24 hour availability at the university gym).
People probably won't use the unlv gym much unless the EPA office is located nearby. The traffic sucks over there, and it's a pretty rough neighborhood to boot,
I know you are not being argumentative. That's usually not how you roll.
If it is a private company - I agree with you. But not for government employees. Why do they get special privileges and I don't?
I think it is cost effective to tell them to find their own gym. And honestly, people tend to put more value and effort into that which they pay for. I bet many of them probably didn't even take advantage of the perk.
On the bold, not all agencies offer this sort of thing. It depends on their budgets.
But I will note that the savvy agencies know that to recruit and retain the best employees, they have to offer some good benefits and a fitness membership is not only attractive to those employees, but it also does save us as taxpayers money.
I only started writing in this discussion because I worked with an agency a couple years ago that was considering getting rid of a discount program that they provided their employees that allowed them to join a specific gym for $5 a month. Getting rid of that program was going to save them about $50k. That organization was government based and they had 200-300 employees. Their annual expenditure in healthcare premiums was in excess of $5 million. We got an insurance broker and compared plans and found a great POS/HSA based plan that was less than the old HMO based plan. They had a goal of decreasing their health insurance premiums by at least 20%. We suggested they also implement a wellness program. We got one that provided Fitbits to employees (for free) and a free gym membership. Employees also got the ability to get up to $2k of their deductible with the HSA provided to them by the agency if they averaged a certain amount of FitBit steps and went to the gym at least 4 times per month. The cost of the plan plus the fitness incentives decreased the cost of their program by a little over 50%. They save over $2 million by giving free stuff to their employees, which meant that we, as taxpayers also saved $2 million. The greatest part of that project was the fact that the employees felt that they had hit the jackpot triple time with the FitBit, gym membership, AND the cost of the new plan was so much lower t han the old one that the employees themselves no longer had to contribute to the premium payment for insurance. Previously they paid, on average about $500 a month for the HMO plan. People did use the FitBits and workout at the gym so they could get the money for their deductible. The agency offered almost the entire deductible if they were active and attended nutritional seminars that the agency threw for employees.
You have to remember that government is very similar to business in how they operate. However, they also have a responsibility to lower their total expenditures as much as they can in order to be a good steward of the public's money.
People probably won't use the unlv gym much unless the EPA office is located nearby. The traffic sucks over there, and it's a pretty rough neighborhood to boot,
I was wondering about the neighborhood as well. A lot of public universities are in bad neighborhoods.
So why not for everyone on taxpayers funded insurance? Seniors on Medicaid? Everyone on Obamacare?
I agree with that. I'd rather see some investment in preventing disease instead of just treating it. Treatment is more expensive than prevention. And a healthy population is good for national security.
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