While GLP-1s have come into the spotlight for helping people lose weight, a clear business case is also crystallizing for companies to offer the medications as a health benefit. Recent studies are already underscoring the benefits GLP-1s can offer employers. Empowering employees with effective weight loss medications can improve the health of their workforce, increase productivity, and lower healthcare costs.

In fact, the drugs’ potential to improve employee satisfaction, wellbeing, and increase workforce performance are key reasons for executives to consider offering GLP-1 coverage, and for benefits consultants to recommend that companies not already doing so rethink that decision.

The High Price of Obesity

‍How much do overweight and obese employees cost employers? In 2023, the total across U.S. industries was $425.5 billion, which includes higher medical costs, worker’s compensation, and instances when employees come to work but are unable to function at high productivity levels. Obesity is also linked to an average of 18.2 missed workdays per year and reduced workplace productivity.  Individually, workers with obesity cost employers more than double compared to workers who are not obese.

Those expenses are critical for employers and health benefits consultants to take into account when evaluating the ROI of covering GLP-1s. To successfully extend GLP-1 coverage to a workforce, employers need to balance access, cost, and long-term outcomes. To that end, more than two-thirds of employers are either currently mandating that employees who leverage the GLP-1 benefit participate in lifestyle modification programs or are planning to do so in 2026. While these programs have existed for years, the newer combination of GLP-1s and lifestyle programs have demonstrated an impact on obesity rates.

The Consequence of Not Offering GLP-1s as a Health Benefit  

‍Already, 52% of employers across a range of industries cover GLP-1s for weight loss, and research shows that all the employers that cover GLP-1s plan to continue offering the health benefit. Forty-two percent of U.S. adults have a condition that can be treated by current indications for GLP-1s, and as GLP-1s are shown to help manage an expanding range of chronic conditions, more companies are likely to offer them as a health benefit. That leaves the shrinking number of employers opting against offering GLP-1s facing their own set of risks: lower employee satisfaction, challenges recruiting and retaining employees, higher healthcare costs down the road due to untreated chronic conditions, lower employee productivity, and the stop-loss impact with short- and long-term claims and workers compensation costs.

What Employers Need: A Strategy to Increase Workforce Productivity 

Ensuring adherence to GLP-1 medications and programs requires employers, unions, and non-governmental organizations to build a long-term strategy for determining eligibility and supporting employees. As the use of GLP-1s expands further, organizations will also need new approaches to support a larger population of people using the medications that integrate access, adherence, and accountability. Emerging technologies can help. These tools, such as AI software and chatbots, are beginning to prove their effectiveness at health coaching for weight management, and are shown to deliver results similar to in-person lifestyle interventions.

But not all chronic condition management programs are the same. The most effective ones combine clinical oversight, advanced technologies, instant access to live care, and a human touch so employees can safely achieve and sustain optimal health outcomes. The eMed Empathetic AI Population Health Platform improves the health of employee populations, increases adherence and accountability among employees using the medications, reduces the costs of offering GLP-1s, and drives overall ROI.