Healthy employees are happier, more productive and they come to work more often.

Plus they’re great for a company’s bottom line.

On Thursday, the state’s Healthy Androscoggin program honored 47 companies that understood those benefits and adopted programs encouraging healthy lifestyles among their employees.

“Our awards program recognizes area businesses and organizations that put wellness as a priority in their organizations by offering programs and policies to employees,” said Jessica Balkun, assistant director of Healthy Androscoggin.

The program handed out its awards at the monthly Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting at the Ramada Inn.

The awards were preceded by a panel discussion headed by Ed Cormier of Harriman Associates, Maureen Wedge of the Sun Journal and Dan Thayer of Thayer Corp. The trio talked about initiatives their companies undertake to help employees become healthier.

Balkun said the payoff to any company that makes wellness a priority can be substantial. She cited a Silicon Valley-based study that found companies can reduce their health-care costs between $165 and $315 a person by having employees participate in wellness programs. The same study also found that absenteeism can be slashed as much as 14 percent and that morale improves significantly.

Healthy Androscoggin, a state Bureau of Health program, has seen an increase in the number of participating companies since its inception in 1999, when it was focused solely on reducing smoking. Since then, its focus has expanded to include physical activity and nutrition.This year 47 awards were handed out.

The awards are made in three categories. The first is a merit award that recognizes companies that promote healthy lifestyle behavior. The second category is a quality award, which promotes healthy behavior and reimburses or covers services related to wellness, such as gym memberships. The third category is the excellence award, which encompasses both of the other two and offers policies and programs that promote in-house changes, such as on-site fitness centers, no junk food in vending machines and replacing the conference room doughnut tray with a fruit platter.

“I’m really excited that people are taking an interest in this,” said Balkun. “I get calls from people asking how they can improve their programs.”

“They are getting the message.”