President Paul Williams has noticed more employees using the company’s fitness room since he started using it early this year.

Paul Williams doesn’t take good health for granted. In a short period of time, cancer claimed the life of his father, who previously ran Wooster, Ohio-based Wooster Motor Ways, and the company’s vice president of operations, who had worked with Williams’ father for many years. The personal loss was enough to motivate Williams, now WMW’s president, to worry about employee health. But there also were significant financial considerations. WMW self-insures for the bulk of its employee heath care coverage.

The Williams family’s first step was to add a new opportunity to WMW’s health coverage – a free annual physical, up to $300, for each WMW employee and spouse who wants one. Costs above $300 are covered by an 80/20 co-pay. It’s a sizable financial commitment, but Williams doesn’t doubt the wisdom for a second. “We believe that’s an investment. If you detect one instance of cancer, it pays back.”

The free physical has uncovered several instances of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar problems that might have gone undetected until they developed into more serious conditions, says Don Cherry, WMW’s director of safety. But following these successes, Williams, Cherry and others at WMW came to recognize that detection was only the beginning. WMW management began to see a deeper mission: helping employees cope with and even avoid those early stages of health problems. On the foundation of company-wide physicals, WMW recently began what today is a full-fledged wellness program.

One champion of the wellness initiative was Ron “Doc” Ramage, WMW’s driver services and safety compliance manager. A former driver, Ramage functions much like a driver advocate within management, helping the carrier communicate more effectively with drivers, provide a better work environment and encourage drivers to operate more safely.

WMW created Ramage’s position in 2001 as part of a reorganization aimed at improved driver retention and satisfaction. At the same time, the carrier converted to a driver manager system from old-style geographical dispatch. The driver manager system allowed for closer management of and consistent treatment of drivers for the mutual benefit of drivers and WMW, says Scott Spitler, WMW’s director of operations.

“Doc felt we could take [the wellness program] a little further,” Williams says. Like Williams, Ramage had a personal motive. He was a cancer survivor, having had prostate cancer detected in the early stages.