By ROB ROBERTS
Kansas City Business Journal

As employers learn the correlation between physical and fiscal fitness, a new type of employee is emerging in many workplaces.

Courtney Lorenz will begin working full time as health-enhancement coordinator, provided through a contract with Saint Luke's Health System, this month at the offices of Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP.

John Mullin, Saint Luke's director of health enhancement, said his division serves more than 20 large Kansas City-area employers with wellness programming and full- or part-time on-site coordinators.

Those employers - including five law firms, four school districts and the cities of Kansas City and Lenexa - spend an average of more than $200 a year per employee for customized wellness services and financial incentives aimed at engaging employees, Mullin said.

"But if you look at the literature," Mullin said, "you're going to find about a 3-to-1 ratio of payoff to investment."

Mullin said meaningful employee incentives are essential, adding, "and I don't mean T-shirts or water bottles, which was the '80s approach."

He added that wellness programming, if treated as an added duty for the human-resources department, may or may not get done.