When Renee Balcom, the local facility manager for Getronics, ruptured an Achilles tendon a year ago, she found the key to healing her heel just a few steps away from her office.


Amsterdam-based Getronics has a well-furnished, about 2,400-square-foot exercise room in its Liberty Lake building, and Balcom uses the equipment there to rebuild the strength in her leg. Before work, on her lunch hour, and after hours, Balcom exercises, and about 70 of the 215 people employed there also use the room, she says.


I wasnt supposed to play soccer again for a year, but my doctor cleared me early, in April, says Balcom, 43. The elliptical machine is a godsend, she adds, referring to a type of cardiovascular-exercise equipment that puts minimal stress on the joints.


Getronics is among a number of companies here that either provide on-site exercise facilities or subsidize their employees enrollment fees and membership dues at independent fitness clubs. Employers here say making fitness more accessible to employees increases the likelihood that they will exercise and thereby improve their health, reduce stress, and have more energy to devote to their jobs.


Its a win-win for our employees as well as for our company, says Mary Trudel, manager of corporate benefits at Spokane-based Avista Corp. Avista has an about 800-square-foot exercise room and locker rooms with showers in its Mission Avenue headquarters complex, which also is close to the Centennial Trail, a popular option for walking and jogging for workers there.


We want our employees feeling good and feeling mentally present when theyre at work, Trudel says. If theyre taking good care of themselves, you get better work production, and theres less need for high-priced medical procedures.


For a time, Avista employed a wellness coordinator who organized aerobics and other group-exercise activities, promoted good health habits, and worked with a committee made up of other employees interested in wellness, says spokeswoman Debbie Simock. The budget for that program was cut two years ago, she says, when Avista had to scale back expenditures. Employees informally have carried on a commitment to work out, though, and about 100 of the 900 people who work at the headquarters site use the exercise room, she says. Avista still pays for one classa lunch-hour yoga session, Simock says.


Thomas Hix, a senior vice president of Spokane-based Tomlinson Black Management Inc., says that most of the newer multitenant office buildings here have exercise rooms.


Thats an amenity that we show everybody thats looking to lease office space, he says. It might be the important thing that that one person is looking for in a building.


He says, though, that other amenities, such as conference rooms, usually are bigger priorities for prospective tenants.


Some multitenant buildings and building complexes that have exercise rooms here are the Old City Hall Building, Rock Pointe Corporate Center, Monroe Court, and Garden Springs Professional Building, Hix says. Some of those rooms are small, maybe 200 square feet, but offer both cardiovascular and weight-lifting equipment, and some buildings have locker rooms with showers, he says. Hix adds that with the exception of downtown buildings, exercise rooms are most common in structures not located near athletic clubs.


Patti Pettigrew, who owns Spokane Exercise Equipment Sales & Service Inc. here with her husband, Gary, says the companys sales to businesses have increased in recent years. About half of Spokane Exercise Equipments transactions are with companies, but those transactions represent more than half of the companys overall revenues because such sales usually are larger than those made to individuals, she says. Pettigrew says sales to businesses range from $2,000 to $150,000.


After 17 years in the exercise-equipment business here, Pettigrew says one trend still rings true.


I think the only reason that a company really pushes to have an exercise room is when the CEO works out and really wants to spend the dollars toward that, she says. It really depends on if the guy at the top is into keeping in shape himself. If so, then he wants that for the people around him.


Subsidizing membership


Some businesses prefer to encourage exercise by subsidizing their employees cost of belonging to athletic clubs, says Julie Greeley, corporate sales manager for 24 Hour Fitness USA Inc.s operations in Eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Club membership usually means employees have access to more fitness activities near their homes, she says.


People tend to want to leave work or they want to include their family in their workouts, Greeley says. For most people, convenience is having (the gym) close to home.


Greeley says she manages 483 corporate accounts from Spokane to Montana. It costs employers a total of between $500 and $1,000 a year to cover up to 99 workers enrollment and processing fees, not including possible subsidies of monthly dues.


Cynthia Norwood, CEO of Physician Hospital Community Organization (PHCO), a health-plan administrator here, says PHCOs corporate membership at 24 Hour Fitness, and its other wellness programs have produced tangible results.


PHCO builds an incentive into its corporate membership at 24 Hour Fitness. The nonprofit pays its employees enrollment and processing fees, but also pays the full monthly membership dues for each month in which an employee visits the club at least eight times. Norwood receives a monthly usage report from the gym, and employees who belong to the club are docked the $29 fee if they didnt work out enough to meet the requirement, she says.


About 70 percent of PHCOs 50 employees belong to 24 Hour Fitness, Norwood says. Another 20 percent take part in the organizations other wellness programs, such as free health screenings, but exercise elsewhere, she says. PHCO also offers its employees free membership to www.efit.com, a fee-based Web site that enables subscribers to set and track fitness and nutrition goals.


Norwood says wellness has improved PHCOs workplace environment.


Productivity, which is evaluated once a month regardless of an employees exercise habits, is 15 percent to 20 percent higher among workers who belong to the fitness club, take part in wellness programs, or do both, she says. The absenteeism of that same group is 30 percent lower than that of the rest of the employees.


The average body mass index, which factors in a persons height and weight, of PHCO employees who are members at 24 Hour Fitness has dropped to 25.2 from 30.8 between the first quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003, Norwood says. That groups average total cholesterol level fell to 165 from almost 185 during that same period, she says.


Norwood says it costs her $80 a year per employee to cover the cost of the wellness programs, not including the $29 a month per employee who belongs to 24 Hour Fitness.


Weve been doing it for two years, and the trend is significantly in favor of improved employee relations, she says.