Wellness Library

Many corporations recognize the need for a accross the board plan to help their staff members be the best they have the potential to be. They also know that successful and sustainable wellness programs are much more than a few “lunch and learn” programs.

Your wellness program ought to include a wide range of key elements, including:

• A clear agenda or statement of objectives and goals.
• A plan characterized by passion.
• An effective leader who is creative and organized.
• A focus on short-term outcomes combined with an overriding vision.
• A measurable strategy (what’s significant gets measured!).
• A policy of celebrating and communicating success.

Beginning Your Worksite Wellness Program

Plan carefully to see that your wellness program is seen as part of a broad responsibility to maintaining the health and safety of each employee. Indeed, creating a good plan takes a lot of effort and time (and at times resources). But planning is important and well worth the cost required. As the saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”

You might begin by delivering a survey of employee needs and interests. If you take this route, pay attention to the results and plan accordingly. If you don’t, the employees won’t support the program.

Collecting information about what you’re already offering is also a great idea. By way of example, you may be surprised by your company or organization’s current wellness and health policies.

Another significant step is to create an agenda and/or measurable objectives to help you determine priorities, timelines and the resources needed to start the program. Be bold and creative in your planning, but also realistic.

Upper Management

The leader of your wellness program must be able to wear numerous hats. The leader’s duties include:

• Implementing a vision of the wellness program after receiving input from all interested staff members.
• Communicating ideas and a rationale throughout the business (to senior managers and fellow staff members alike).
• Keeping others enthusiastic about and committed to a wellness program.
• Serving as a role model and wellness coach.
• Creating and maintaining leadership skills such as giving effective presentations and being well-organized.

Good leaders avert becoming overwhelmed by overly ambitious and complex plans. You may want to stick to short-term objectives at the beginning so that you get immediate and visible results. These first steps are the basis for a successful wellness program.

Good leaders involve as many people as possible in the program. By way of example, you’ll want to form a Employee Health Promotion Program Committee made up of a diverse group of workers to support advice during the planning phase. This approach will:

• Assist you to get valuable information from all parts of the organization.
• Create ambassadors who will help you implement the wellness program.

Keeping Score and Celebrating

Always keep in mind how you will monitor progress and evaluate the success of your wellness program. Assessment allows you to:

• Identify areas of excellence.
• Ascertain factors that affect participation in your programs.
• Gain management’s support for your efforts (and maintain that support).
• Better understand issues that need attention.
• Learn from mistakes and change the program to keep it on the right track.

When you evaluate your program, you are able to measure such things as:

• Employee absences.
• Employee turnover rates.
• The cost of your Employee Assistance Program(EAP).
• The cost of benefits, including short-term and long-term disability payments.
• The expenditure of your drug plan.
• Accident rates and safety records.
• Employees’ participation in wellness programs (and whether they’re staying in the programs).
• Changes in employees’ health habits.
• Level of employees’ awareness of healthy lifestyle problems.
• Results of your environmental wellness audit.
• Other noticeable changes in areas such as morale and job satisfaction.

A great communications plan provides ongoing information to workers (including senior managers) and creates excitement about the wellness program. Positive reinforcement is critical in an effective communications plan. By way of example, you might recognize individuals who have helped established the program or provide tangible rewards for meeting goals/objectives.

Everyone needs to know whether staff members are getting involved, enjoying the activities and getting some advance from them. Showing that a wellness program has financial benefits is often an significant factor in maintaining strong reinforcement from the top.

If you focus on the key elements of your wellness program and communicate openly and continuously while planning and delivering it, you will lay a solid foundation and leave a legacy that endures.

Tags: Corporate Wellness, health, medical, Wellness Library

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 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.