Companies focusing on workers' well-being and safety outperform others

A new study has suggested that companies that build a culture of health by focusing on the well-being and safety of their workforce may yield greater value for their investors.

The stock market performance of companies that had received ACOEM's Corporate Health Achievement Award (CHAA), which annually recognizes the healthiest and safest companies in North America, was conducted at HealthNEXT LLC and analyzed by lead authors Raymond Fabius, MD, and R. Dixon Thayer, and colleagues.

Tracking an initial theoretical investment of 10,000 dollars in publicly traded CHAA-recipients from the mid 1990s to 2012, researchers found that these award-winning CHAA companies outperformed the S and P 500.

Four investment scenarios were created, using a combination of simulations and past market-performance to create investor portfolios for comparison. While the margin of return varied, CHAA recipients outperformed the market in each of the four scenarios.

In the highest-performing scenario, CHAA companies had an annualized return of 5.23 percent vs. 0.06 percent for the S and P 500.

In the lowest-performing scenario, CHAA companies had an annualized return of 6.03 percent vs. 2.92 percent for the S and P 500.

The study has been published in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.