Before 'wellness' became all the rage, a small Minnesota sawmill found a commonsense way to reduce accidents, alcoholism, and absenteeism
IT WAS A SAD SIGHT. AROUND NOON, the president of Scherer Brothers Lumber Co. had to be coaxed into a car and driven home by an employee. He just couldn't make it through the whole day.
His sons, Roger and Gary, had a system for handling it. Out in the lumberyard, they tracked down Curt Olson, a warehouse worker who knew best how to talk to their father, Clarence Scherer. "You are leaving now," Olson would firmly tell his boss. If Clarence shook his head, Olson might march him into the men's room, where he knew Clarence hid a whiskey bottle. "Have you been drinking?" he would ask, waving the bottle around. Once, on the way home in the car, Clarence started crying. "Every problem in the business I can solve," the 70-year-old man said. "But not this."
He never did. Clarence died in 1974. "For all practical purposes, the drinking killed him," says Bob Peters, director of personnel. Munn Scherer, Clarence's younger brother and the business's co-founder, took over the reins for five years. He too had a weakness for the bottle, but not as severe as Clarence's. So in 1979 the second generation officially took control of the Minneapolis company, which supplies lumber to builders.
Clarence and Munn's sons inherited an $8-million concern shaped by their fathers' personal weaknesses. Beer kegs sat in the lumberyard. Salesmen stashed whiskey flasks in their desks, ready to inbibe with customers. Alcohol, after all, had always been part of the lumberjack's macho image. Both of the company's founders were smokers, and generous with that habit too. They bought packs at wholesale and sold them to employees at less than retail prices. The Scherer brothers managed in a haze, their plans changing from day to day.
Like an alcoholic, Scherer Brothers had to hit rock bottom before it could begin to heal. It took a series of senseless tragedies to transform the company managers into pioneers of health promotion. Eight years later, the benefits are obvious. By year's end, for instance, the $67-million company may save as much as $120,000 on worker's compensation insurance. And the payback is just beginning.
The Scherers first thought of wellness as "a small idea that sounded good," remembers Greg Scherer, vice-president of marketing. That's about as far as most small companies get. They hear that wellness programs have helped Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, and Control Data manage rising health costs. Johnson & Johnson's wellness program saved it nearly $1 million over five years. But can a company with, say, 1% of the employees and a fraction of the sales expect comparable results? "There just isn't enough information for small companies," admits Elaine Willis, director of Foundation for Wellness, a nonprofit research company. Often, small companies are insured in groups, so any individual company may not even know exactly how its premium is being spent.
Health Works Northwest, a nonprofit health-planning and research firm in Seattle, surveyed 31 small-business owners in 1983 about their reasons for starting a wellness program. The executives cited improving morale and increasing productivity as their top two concerns. Cost containment ranked a distant third.
Given the unpredictable return on investment, most small companies launch wellness programs for other reasons. Some instinctively believe that healthier workers are more productive. Others use wellness benefits to compete for the best employees. And many come around because of a personal experience. "A chief executive officer and a heart attack can work miracles at a company that's been afraid to fund a wellness program," says Earl Hipp, a wellness consultant. Many stricken executives preach the merits of a healthy lifestyle with missionary zeal. Recent studies focusing on the expense and hazard of smokers in the workplace have also converted some CEOs. "They start to rehabilitate themselves, then the old adage takes over: 'There's nothing worse than an ex-smoker," says Ed Wedman, director of corporate services for Health Fitness Consultants, part of Abbott Northwestern Hospital, in Minneapolis. "You'd be surprised at how motivating a health crisis can be."
Not one, not two, but three health crises had to occur at their company before the Scherers decided to fight back.
During his 25 years at Scherer Brothers, Pat Faber rose through the ranks of laborer, driver, and shed foreman to become company foreman. The 42 employees under him were known for their productivity. One day, a massive heart attack killed the overweight 45-year-old before his ambulance reached the hospital.
That same year, Frank Goodrich, a yard worker, was unloading Sheetrock when he turned away from the load. He wanted to block the wind so he could light a cigarette. When he turned back, more than a ton of Sheetrock was slipping off the flatcar. He died a few hours later.
John Buckley, the chief sawyer, didn't die on the job. He had three years to go until retirement when he started feeling frequent dizziness and headaches. It turned out to be arteriosclerosis of the brain, which forced him into early retirement. Immobile and financially strapped, Buckley hung himself.
Scherer Brothers reeled from the successive blows, all of which occurred between 1976 and 1978. Those years would have been difficult even without the tragic backdrop, as the company passed from one generation to the next. Roger, Clarence's son, was just settling in as president after serving a term in the Minnesota legislature. Greg, Munn's son, had decided to come aboard after working with juvenile delinquents. Greg's older brother, Mike, took over his father's job as director of operations. He quickly set about cleaning up the lumberyard and establishing a consistent roster of suppliers. "The second generation was just starting to exert its control," says Greg.
