Starting a Employee Health and Wellness Program

The workplace setting is a effective, but frequently overlooked, element in managing staff member health.  Here we will identify some of the best-practices in establishing a Employee Health and Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows staff members to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes a tobacco-free workplace policy increases the likelihood that staff members will try to quit smoking and will quit smoking successfully. Similarly, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps raise 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 establishing a Employee Health and Wellness Program and workplace setting that promotes staff member health.

In an era of ever-increasing healthcare costs and fierce competition, businesses 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 smoking or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than staff members with unhealthy behaviors.

Workplace Wellness Program: Securing Upper Management Support

Employee Health and Wellness Program support from the highest level of leadership is essential to your success in establishing a culture of health within your workplace. Look for Employee Health and Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not necessary that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Workplace 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 Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the workplace policies, physical setting, and social norms.

Capture Employee Health and Wellness Program Staff and Budget

The creation and maintenance of a Employee Health and Wellness Program within your company needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your company is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Workplace Wellness Program.  There are a number of ways to find an individual with the necessary skills to guide and support your company’s Workplace Wellness Program.

Starting facilities and Employee Health and Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing staff members to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be costly, but it does require adequate and sustained financing.  If possible, include the creation of a workplace setting that supports the Employee Health and Wellness Program as a permanent component of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your company.

Employee Involvement in the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Setting up a cross section of employees to advise your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and obstacles of all groups of employees.   In addition, these staff members can serve as the front-line Employee Health and Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Create a Employee Health and Wellness Program “Brand” and Vision

A Employee Health and Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in bringing a Employee Health and Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Employee Health and Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (staff members and leaders alike) the reasons for establishing a Workplace Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between staff member health and your company’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program conveys to staff members that the company’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Employee Health and Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with staff members. Then use that brand on all Employee Health and Wellness Program communications with staff members about the policies, facilities and programs your company offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Determine Your Current Employee Health and Wellness Program Situation

Exactly how your company establishes a Employee Health and Wellness Program that promotes healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your company and employee population.

Determine 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.

Establish Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals and Priorities

Use what you’ve discovered about the health of the employees and about your current workplace setting to determine your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities. From those Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employee Health and Wellness Program objectives for improving the health of the employees and your company’s culture. Well written objectives will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Choose Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies

Focus your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on strategies that are most likely to produce results:  an increase in healthy eating, an increase 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 Employee Health and Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Employee Health and Wellness Program strategies are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Employee Health and Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies

Once you’ve chosen your Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your company.  Work plans keep your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Employee Health and Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Educate and Communicate About the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Ensure staff members are aware of the Employee Health and Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Employee Health and Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with staff members without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Employee Health and Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Employee Health and 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 Employee Health and 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 Employee Health and 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 Employee Health and Wellness Program successes in getting employees to take charge of their health (an increase in the number of staff members who contacted the stop-smoking program, or an increase in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).