The workplace setting is a effective, but often overlooked, element in managing staff member health. Here we will identify some of the best-practices in starting a Company Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows staff members to take charge of their own health. For example, a Company Wellness Program that includes a tobacco-free workplace policy improves the likelihood that staff members will try to quit tobacco use and will quit using tobacco successfully.
Similarly, a Company Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase staff members’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for staff members with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in starting a Company Wellness Program and workplace setting that promotes staff member health.
In an era of ever-increasing healthcare costs and fervent competition, organizations have a vested interest in the health of their staff members. Studies have found that, on average, staff members with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less often, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than staff members with unhealthy behaviors.
Employee Wellness Program: Securing Leadership Support
Company Wellness Program support from the uppermost level of leadership is essential to your success in starting a culture of wellness within your workplace. Look for Company Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can sway other leaders. (It’s not necessary that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Wellness Program.) You will be relying on this culture-of-health champion to advocate for changes that you recommend and to ensure the organization allocates adequate Company Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the workplace policies, physical setting, and social norms.
Secure Company Wellness Program Staff and Budget
The creation and maintenance of a Company Wellness Program within your organization needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your organization is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Wellness Program. There are a number of ways to find an individual with the needed skills to guide and support your organization’s Employee Wellness Program.
Creating facilities and Company Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing staff members to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be expensive, but it does require adequate and sustained funding. If possible, include the creation of a workplace setting that supports the Company Wellness Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your organization.
Employee Involvement in the Company Wellness Program
Setting up a representative group of employees to advise your organization’s Company Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of employees. In addition, these staff members can support as the front-line Company Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.
Develop a Company Wellness Program Vision and “Brand”
A Company Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in moving a Company Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Company Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (staff members and leaders alike) the reasons for starting a Employee Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between staff member health and your organization’s ability to achieve its overall mission.
Branding your organization’s Company Wellness Program conveys to staff members that the organization’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Company Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with staff members. Then use that brand on all Company Wellness Program communications with staff members about the policies, facilities and programs your organization offers to promote healthy behaviors.
Assess Your Present Company Wellness Program Situation
Exactly how your organization establishes a Company Wellness Program that promotes healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your organization and employee population. Assess how the current workplace facilities, policies, and unwritten norms support — or discourage — healthy behaviors.
Gather information on the health and health-related behaviors of your employee population. The most common method is by using a validated health risk assessment. If you don’t have data specific to your staff members, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data. Note: Information on employees’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.
Set Company Wellness Program Goals and Priorities
Use what you’ve learned about employee health and about your current workplace setting to determine your organization’s Company Wellness Program priorities. From those Company Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Company Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your organization’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.
Choose Company Wellness Program Strategies
Focus your organization’s Company Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on strategies that are most likely to produce results: a rise in healthy eating, a rise in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of studies and has identified the Company Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Company Wellness Program strategies are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.
The formula for Company Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.
Implement Company Wellness Program Strategies
Once you’ve chosen your Company Wellness Program Strategies, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline. The “right” amount of time for implementing each Company Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your organization. Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Company Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.
Educate and Communicate About the Company Wellness Program
Ensure staff members are aware of the Company Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided. Planning your Company Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with staff members without overwhelming them at any one time.
Monitor and Report Your Company Wellness Program Results
At the same time that you plan your Company Wellness Program Strategies, think about how you’ll measure success. It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you start a Company Wellness Program strategy rather than as an afterthought. Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in staff member morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in absenteeism or healthcare claims.
Report both your Company Wellness Program successes in building a healthy workplace environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides staff members time for walking during the workday), and Company Wellness Program successes in getting employees to take charge of their health (a rise in the number of staff members who contacted the stop-smoking program, or a rise in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).
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