Wellness Library

There is no one right way to approach wellness programs but winning programs share common success factors. These include management support and commitment, employee involvement, adequate resources, and a policy on health that goes hand in hand with the organization’s mission, vision and values.

Employee Health Promotion Program: A Range of Approaches

Although the objective is to eventually have a long-term, inclusive wellness program, some organizations prefer to start with a single program at a basic level. By way of example, the first steps might be as simple as offering lunch-hour sessions on first aid or healthy eating; or they might launch a pilot project to find out how interested employees are to ensure employees needs are being met before taking on anything more ambitious. This approach supports a chance to show the effect on employees and the workplace so management will be more willing to consider a larger and more far-reaching plan.

Other businesses plan a variety of drives to meet the needs of the different sorts of people that make up their workforce. And some decide to advance a sound corporation case, complete with a health plan, before setting out on any sort of program. Organizations want to ensure that a new program is completely integrated with their overall corporation vision and mission.

Worksite Health Promotion Program: Success Factors

Whether your business chooses to think big from the outset or to activate with something smaller, always keep in mind the following key success factors:

• support and participation from upper management;
• employee participation in organizing;
• programs that meet employee needs;
• a realistic budget; and
• continuous review.

In sports, a game plan is a series of steps that a group must follow to accomplish its intention of winning. Most winning teams plan to win. Employers also need game plans, even if they do not call them by that name.

Good planning will help to ensure that your wellness program happens the way you want it to, and that expenditures have the potential to be identified in advance and kept within budget. Good planning prevents small problems from becoming bigger.

Steps in Planning a Workplace Health Promotion Program

Get upper management backing. You may need to foster a organization case to convince managers that the wellness program is a organization strategy-that employee health and job satisfaction impacts their productiveness. employees need to see evidence that upper management believes in and is committed to employee health.

Establish a planning committee. Members can include representatives from employee groups as well as from human resources(HR), health and safety, and communications.

Gather information. To prove that your Worksite Health Promotion Program is beneficial, establish a benchmark before the program begins. You may wish to look at employee satisfaction, absenteeism rates, stress levels, drug costs or WCB expenditures. Review what workplace facilities are available to support employees to make healthy choices such as showers and change areas or a secure place to store a bicycle. Review employee needs through a survey or questionnaire, suggestion box or focus group. Communicate the results.

Design the plan to reflect the information gathered. Include program objectives, activities and how you are going to measure whether your objectives were met. Keep the plan flexible. You may have to change direction in response to employee feedback or changes in the company’s structure.

Obtain senior staff approval. Support for employee time and a budget are required.

Put activities in place. Offer a variety of activities that create awareness, increase knowledge, develop skills, and support social interaction. (Activities might include walking clubs, participation in national campaigns such as Worksite Wellness Programs Week, SummerActive, WinterActive, corporate challenge, golf days, and newsletters that support information about community resources.) Workplaces are able to also make it easier for employees to make healthy choices by providing flextime to allow employees to fit exercise in when it is convenient or by subsidizing programs in cooperation with community or private fitness facilities. A policy on catering for gatherings has the potential to make sure that healthy foods are provided.

Evaluate the plan. Share your successes with others, learn from your mistakes and modify activities.

A wellness program doesn’t have to be complicated or a huge cost. Just do it. Get support from upper management, bring a few committed people together to generate some ideas and get started.

Tags: Corporate Wellness, health, medical, Wellness Library

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 3:19 am and is filed under Corporate Wellness, Wellness Library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.