Wellness Library : What is a Company Health Promotion Program?

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to set up healthy workplaces focused on safety at the worksite and injury prevention for workers.

More recently, programs are designed to support  staff members to choose healthier behaviors like increasing physical activity levels or stopping smoking. Campaigns to increase awareness, educational sessions to expand knowledge, opportunities to acquire new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthy choices are frequently included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach individuals, since most adult Canadians spend a large part of their day at work.

While safety and lifestyle programs are 2 aspects that contribute to the health of workers, workplace wellness is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.

How the workplace affects health.

Increasingly, it is recognized that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When people are satisfied with their job, they are more beneficial and tend to be healthier. When staff members feel that the environment at work is harmful, they feel stressed. Stress has a big impact on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productiveness.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified 5 components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the corporation overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that corporations must truly care about the wellbeing of their workers.

Companies today who want to attract and retain good staff members have leaders who know the importance between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a corporation strategy.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving staff members in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and offering support to balance life at work and home.

Employers know that workers are looking for jobs that pay well, have great benefits, are interesting, and include excellent health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more significant than ever for corporations to enhance job satisfaction and be sure that workers enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and workers.

How does workplace wellness advance the employer?

A workplace wellness program can help a organization to:

• attract and keep employees;
• reduce the costs of disability, drugs, and absenteeism;
• cut the effects of a stressful workplace;
• decrease health expenditures or keep them contained; and
• better morale by creating a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Workplace Health Promotion Programs Profit staff members?

workers of corporations that have a Workplace Health Promotion Program are likely to have:

• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to better their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and wellness;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productivity and success at work;
• reduced personal medical costs; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health problems.

Both employers and employees have a responsibility for creating a healthy workplace. Staff Members are expected to arrive at work in great health, and the business is expected to offer an environment that allows employees to maintain great health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the company’s success.

Workplace wellness is much more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about creating a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of staff members, adopting a beneficial work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep staff members healthy and happy at work. A good Employee Wellness Program has an influence on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing.

Tags: , , ,

Leave a Reply