Employer Wellness

A representative Health and Wellness Committee is a cornerstone of a successful Employee Wellness Program, regardless of the size of the business.

Membership of your Health and Wellness Committee

Aim for a committee of a manageable size (no more than 15 members, depending on your business’s size). Your Health and Wellness Committee should represent all employee groups (e.g., full-time and part-time staff members, managers and front-line staff members, salary and hourly employees, union representation, Human Resources, marketing or communications, legal, and occupational health/safety).

Here are some additional considerations:

• Health and Wellness Committee members can be selected by leadership or can be selected from among volunteers.
• Determine in advance how long Health and Wellness Committee members will serve and how new members will be selected. Balance the need for continuity with the need to bring fresh ideas and energy to your business’s Employee Wellness Program.
• It’s not important, or even desirable, to have your healthiest staff members on the Health and Wellness Committee. Ideal Health and Wellness Committee members are those who best can represent their peers, motivate others and support the implementation of the Employee Wellness Program.
• Consider providing an incentive or recognition to Health and Wellness Committee members. It legitimizes their positions and encourages participation. Some businesss that have started stipends have generated enough staff member interest that the selection of Health and Wellness Committee membership becomes a competitive process. The Health and Wellness Committee responsibilities become a formal part of the member’s job accountabilities.

Role of your Health and Wellness Committee

In some businesss the Health and Wellness Committee is accountable for the implementation of the Employee Wellness Program. In other businesss, the Health and Wellness Committee plays an advisory role. In either case, the group members can be asked to:

• Attend regular meetings of the Health and Wellness Committee.
• Help develop a vision and name for the business’s Employee Wellness Program.
• Represent their peers by sharing ideas, needs, concerns and feedback from their work areas and colleagues about proposed Employer Wellness Program Procedures, policies, and programs.
• Provide feedback on the possible obstacles to proposed Employer Wellness Program Procedures and offer suggestions for addressing those obstacles (e.g., how does a proposed policy fit with the schedules of staff members?).
• Suggest effective Employer Wellness Program communication Procedures and solutions to challenges. For example, what is the best way to communicate with staff members who work the third shift? How will staff members react to a proposed message from leadership?
• Be a voice of support for a culture of wellness, carrying the message from the Health and Wellness Committee to their work areas and colleagues.

Functioning of your Health and Wellness Committee

Meet. Schedule regular Health and Wellness Committee meetings on paid work time. Your Health and Wellness Committee may want to meet regulary at first, then slightly less frequently as your health improvement strategy is more established. If your Health and Wellness Committee is new, it might be useful to ask members to provide information about themselves and their interests.

Communicate. Set up regular channels of communication with Health and Wellness Committee members so they are up to date and engaged. An email list is frequently the easiest way to do this. Encourage communication to flow both ways: from Employer Wellness Program coordinator to members and from members to coordinator.

Check-in. At least once a year, assess how effectively the Health and Wellness Committee is functioning. Is the Health and Wellness Committee serving its original purpose? Ask committee members for their feedback. Do they feel like their work is making a difference? Do they feel like their input is valued and taken into account when planning and implementing initiatives? Do they understand their expected Employer Wellness Program roles and responsibilities? Are there members who want to rotate off of the committee? How will new members be selected?

The worksite setting is a effective, but frequently overlooked, component in managing staff member health.  Here we will identify some of the best-practices in starting a Employer Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows staff members to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Employer Wellness Program that includes a smoke-free worksite policy increases the likelihood that staff members will try to quit tobacco use and will quit smoking successfully. Similarly, a Employer 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 starting a Employer Wellness Program and worksite setting that encourages staff member health.

In an era of increasing medical care costs and fervent competition, organizations have a vested interest in the health of their staff members.  Research 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 medical care expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than staff members with unhealthy behaviors.

Employee Wellness Program: Getting Upper Management Support

Employer Wellness Program support from the highest level of leadership is essential to your success in starting a culture of wellness within your worksite. Look for Employer Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can sway other leaders. (It’s not important 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 Employer Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the worksite policies, physical setting, and social norms.

Gain Employer Wellness Program Staff and Financing

Starting and maintaining a Employer Wellness Program within your business needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your business 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 required skills to guide and support your business’s Employee Wellness Program.

Starting facilities and Employer 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 financing.  If possible, include the creation of a worksite setting that supports the Employer Wellness Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your business.

Employee Involvement in the Employer Wellness Program

Developing a cross section of workers to advise your business’s Employer Wellness Program ensures that improvements in worksite facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and obstacles of all groups of workers.   In addition, these staff members can serve as the front-line Employer Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Create a Employer Wellness Program Vision and “Brand”

A Employer Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in bringing a Employer Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your worksite environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Employer 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 business’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

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

Assess Your Present Employer Wellness Program Situation

Exactly how your business establishes a Employer Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your business and employee population.

Assess how the current worksite 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 workers’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Determine Employer Wellness Program Priorities and Goals

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current worksite setting to determine your business’s Employer Wellness Program priorities. From those Employer Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employer Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your business’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Choose Employer Wellness Program Procedures

Focus your business’s Employer Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on procedures 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 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of studies and has identified the Employer Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Employer Wellness Program procedures are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Employer Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Employer Wellness Program Procedures

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

Educate and Communicate About the Employer Wellness Program

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

Monitor and Report Your Employer Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Employer Wellness Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you begin a Employer 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 medical care claims.

Report both your Employer Wellness Program successes in building a healthy worksite environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides staff members time for walking during the workday), and Employer Wellness Program successes in getting workers 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).

Most employers do not have the Employer Wellness Program resources to address all of their health/wellness needs at once. Priorities must be set to determine the most pressing health/wellness needs. Use the steps below to prioritize company Wellness needs.

Assess the health/wellness needs of the population.

Collect data about the health/wellness needs in the community. How?

• Community- or target group-specific surveys

Identify health/wellness needs and at-risk populations.

Use the data to identify leading health/wellness needs and also high risk populations. For example:
• Obesity and overweight
• Injury prevention
• Self care

Reduce the list.

Not every health need can (or should) be addressed. Use the following questions to determine which health/wellness needs should be addressed first.
• How does the health need impact operational readiness? How big is the impact?
• What are the Upper Management priorities? How does the health need fit into those priorities?
• What are the behavioral factors affecting the health need? What is the evidence that a behavior change will make a difference? Has the behavior been successfully changed by other Employee Wellness Programs?
• What other social, physical, or environmental factors influence the health need or the target population?
• Is the health need a greater problem at the local level than in the U.S. population as a whole?
• Does the organization have the subject matter expertise and resources to address the health need?

Develop Employer Wellness Program recommendations.

Only a handful of specific health/wellness needs should be focused on in a given year. Keep the following in mind as recommendations are developed as to which specific health/wellness needs will be addressed:
• Avoid duplication of other ongoing Employee Wellness Programs whenever possible. Identify Employee Wellness Programs already addressing the health need and/or the target population.
• Identify and assess available resources. Build on existing services whenever possible.

Use the recommendations to offer tailored, targeted, integrated initiatives to address the prioritized list of health/wellness needs. Prioritizing health/wellness needs will keep Employee Wellness Programs focused, maximize efficient use of resources, and align Wellness efforts with Upper Management goals and priorities.

References
• US Department of Health and Human Services, Planned Approach to Community Health, http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/publications/PATCH/index.htm.
• Implementing a Comprehensive Community Wellness and Well Being Program, presentation by CHPPM-EUR at the 2006 Force Health Protection Conference

Health Testing:
• Blood checks
• Breast cancer Testing
• Skin cancer Testing
• Diabetes Testing
• Cholesterol Testing
• Eye exams
• Body-fat Testing
• Influenza (Flu) shots
• Posture screening, spinal assessment
• Workplace child immunizations
• Prostate cancer screenings
• Fitness Testing
• Depression Testing

Physical Fitness Activities:
• Workplace excercise room or fitness center
• Walking and/or running club (during lunch hour or breaks)
• Workplace bike rake
• Mind and Body classes (yoga, tai chi) programs
• Team sports (basketball, volleyball softball)
• Host an exercise equipment swap

Lifestyle Change or Behavior Change Programs:
• Tobacco cessation
• Weight management programs
• Substance abuse programs
• Physical Fitness activity
• Stress management programs

Safety and Prevention Programs:
• Back-injury training and prevention
• Education about Ergonomics
• Hand-tool safety programs
• Fire safety programs

Awareness, Health Education, and Support Programs:
• Lunch & Learn or brown-bag wellness seminars (see your EAP for a list)
• Nutrition and diet information, plus provide healthy food alternatives in your vending machines and cafeteria, and provide food storage and preparation facilities to encourage healthier eating
• Prenatal care programs
• Work-Life Balance programs
• Senior care programs
• Cancer survivor support groups
• Financial Wellness Programs

Stress-Reliever Programs:
• Laughter bulletin board where staff members can post jokes and cartoons (in good taste)
• Onsite Massage Services
• Stretch breaks
• Group lunches or celebrations

Disease Management Programs:

• Obesity
• Depression
• Asthma
• Back pain
• Hypertension
• Diabetes
• Cancer

Employee Wellness Programs are also an effective way to educate staff members/parents about substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, depression, mental illness, learning disabilities, and other issues that affect adults, children, and teens. Arming parents, other relatives, and concerned friends with information is a way to prevent problems in the future, for themselves and their children.

Employees may not be comfortable attending Employee Wellness Programs entitled “Substance Abuse and You” or “Dealing With Depression,” fearing they have “self-identified” just by their presence. However, when much of that same information is billed as “Teens and Substance Abuse” or “Recognizing the Signs of Depression in Teens,” there may be a full house for the presentation.

Once this happens, the levels of awareness are raised. An employee who is concerned that he or she is actually depressed can attend and gain life-saving information. Using this type of approach in Employee Wellness Programs goes beyond raising awareness among parents whose children are struggling with personal problems.

Mental health topics are frequently difficult to introduce. There is still some stigma attached to being “mentally ill” or having alcohol problems. A benign way to bring information into the worksite is to use Employee Wellness Programs and the National Screening Day programs. These are dates that have been set aside each year to raise awareness about various problems. They include:

Alcohol Abuse and Addiction (April)
Anxiety Disorders (during Mental Health Month in May)
Depression (October)
Eating Disorders (February)

There is a wealth of information available online that can be made available to your staff members at no cost as part of your Employee Wellness Programs. All it takes begin this into Employee Wellness Programs is some type of notification in the form of an e-mail with an introductory statement and some links.

Local mental health clinics, medical schools, and hospitals usually provide free employee health screenings on designated days so that anyone can come in, take a test, and get information and a referral for care if appropriate. You could arrange with a local provider for a block of time for your staff members to participate in the screenings, or talk to them about coming into the worksite to provide them.

Organization processes are structured activities that achieve a specific result. For example, scheduling appointments is a organization process that results in an orderly work flow and timely patient care.

Employer Wellness Program implementation frequently requires changes to established organization processes. These changes may be simple, such as adding prescreening appointments to the scheduling process, or more complicated, like determining how time devoted to a particular Employer Wellness Program will be coded.

Not all change can be affected painlessly. However, developing a plan for achieving change will overcome obstacles like:

“But we’ve always done it that way” or “But we’ve never done it that way.”

Each change situation will be different. The path to achieving change may not always be straightforward.

Lesson learned: Making small, incremental changes will be easier than trying to make one big change. It is also easier to modify a current process than to introduce a brand new one.

Develop a road map for change.

Describe the current organization process.
• For example: what is the current registration process for the weight management program? Include steps for both members and staff.

Identify where the new or modified organization process could fit into the current process.
• For example, prescreening appointments for the weight management program could be scheduled when members sign up OR the prescreening could be done at the first class.

Collaborate.
• Look at the change process to be a team effort. Determine everyone who will be affected by the change and get their input.
o For example, be sure to ask the personnel that set up the prescreening appointments AND the personnel that would do the prescreening for their ideas.
• Recruit one or more champions for the change. It helps if the champion has some clout.
• Get buy-in from as many workers as you can – including those that might be most resistant to the change.

Communicate.
• Don’t keep the change a secret. The more workers know, the more likely they will support a change.
• Anticipate obstacles ahead of time. Be ready to articulate concrete benefits that will result from the change – especially advantages such as costs avoided or training time conserved.

To effectively manage your Employer Wellness Program resources, first determine the resources you need and the resources you have. Then develop a plan to fill the resource gaps.

What Employer Wellness Program resources do you need?
• Make a list of workers, materials, equipment, space, and logistical support.
• Be as specific as possible.
• Include partnerships that will be needed to make the Employer Wellness Program happen.

Identify available Employer Wellness Program resources.
• Use materials that exist or are already on hand. Resist the temptation to start from scratch!
• Determine what other departments already have.
• Know where to borrow or get free materials.
• Use local or internal resources whenever possible.
• Look for opportunities to cut and/or share costs.

Develop a strategy to fill Employer Wellness Program resource gaps.
• Partner with as many workers and employers as you can. Emphasize what’s in it for them.
o Example: use a Physical Therapist to teach a back health class.
• Make use of community organizations and coalitions.
• Use volunteers as frequently as possible.
o Red Cross volunteers, medical interns or nursing students can supplement your manpower.

Former Employer Wellness Program members make good guest speakers.
• Keep a list of subject matter experts who will provide input for free so you can avoid the expense of an outside contractor or consultant.

Look for creative Employer Wellness Program opportunities.
• Other funding opportunities may exist at your facility.
o Example: if there is a book fair, see if you can apply to receive some of the proceeds.
• Ask the unit to contribute resources to Employee Wellness Programs directly started at the unit level.
• Get to know the contracting person at your company. They frequently know the least expensive places to obtain many different kinds of materials.
• Look for “recycling” possibilities.
o Example: You may be able to give you old computer workstations for use with electronic health assessments.

Good communication will help you find more partners and volunteers.
• Get the word out to the community about your Employee Wellness Programs.
• Describe what you are doing and how you are doing it.
• Presentation is everything. Keep information current and use lots of visual aids.

All Employee Wellness Programs require resources. Some resources you will already have. Some resources you will have to find. Sometimes you will have to make something out of very little. Smart strategies can maximize your Wellness resources.

Collaboration and Effective Employee Wellness Programs

Why should you collaborate?

Active, ongoing partnerships and cooperative efforts multiply Employer Wellness Program resources in order to better serve Employees and their families.

How can you build collaboration into a Employee Wellness Program?

Get Ready…
• Brainstorm a list of every potential Wellness partner you can think of. Be creative!
• Be a politician: introduce yourself to everyone BEFORE you need their help.
• Develop a plan to get Upper Management support from as high up the chain as possible. Ensure that to include specific ways that your Employer Wellness Program will impact force readiness.
• Determine how YOU can help your partners (not just what they can do for you).

Be Steady…
• Solicit input from everyone that your Employer Wellness Program will affect. Make a special effort to talk to the workers closest to Employer Wellness Program implementation (those with “boots on the ground”).
• The most frequently asked questions should be: “What would you suggest?” and “How do you think this would work best?”
• Find someone who has done the same type of Employer Wellness Program before and ask their advice. (Hint: the Employer Wellness Program has a list of many Wellness POCs.)
• Plan NOW to show Employer Wellness Program effectiveness. Identify who may ALREADY BE COLLECTING information that will show the Employer Wellness Program is working.

Get Set…
• Step back and look at your Employer Wellness Program from a potential partner’s point of view.
• Brainstorm questions your collaborators might have, and have the answers ready.
• Be ready to frame your “selling points” in terms that are important to each specific partner.
• Put the Employer Wellness Program benefits in language your collaborators will understand.
• Emphasize to potential partners how this Employer Wellness Program will provide benefit to them.

And Go…
• Build as many partnerships as you can BEFORE you begin a Employee Wellness Program.
• Make your partnerships a two-way street: always let your collaborators know what you can do for them – then follow-up and do what you say you would do.
• Maintain Upper Management support by providing a regular flow of information. Invite Upper Management participation in the Employer Wellness Program and special events whenever possible. (Hint: they make great judges if you have a contest.)
• Provide regular feedback to your collaborators.
• Don’t hog the spotlight: let your collaborators share in the visibility of the Employee Wellness Program.

Why have Employer Wellness Program goals?

Employer Wellness Program goals take your business’s priorities for employee health improvement and make them specific and measurable. Well-defined Employer Wellness Program goals provide direction for deciding on Procedures and a basis for which to measure progress.

Writing Employer Wellness Program goals

Writing Employer Wellness Program goals is not complicated or difficult. It does require some thought, about your business’s Employer Wellness Program vision for a culture of wellness and they should be:

Specific Employer Wellness Program Goals
Measurable Employer Wellness Program Goals
Attainable Employer Wellness Program Goals
Realistic Employer Wellness Program Goals
Timely Employer Wellness Program Goals

Specific Employer Wellness Program Goals: What is the specific outcome your business is looking for? “Reduce tobacco use among staff members” is more specific than “Improve the health of staff members.” You may wish to write some goals about specific outcomes (reducing smoking among staff members) and other goals about specific progress (implementing a smoke-free campus policy or reducing the price of fresh fruit in the cafeteria to 25 cents a piece).

Measurable Employer Wellness Program Goals: Making your goals measurable provides a means of evaluating your progress and success. There is a saying: “what gets measured, gets done.” Goals which are measurable can be effective motivators for your business. “Provide more time for staff members to be physically active” is much less measurable than “implement a daily 15-minute walking break into the schedule of all staff members.” “Increase the number of staff members who want to quit smoking” is less measurable than “increase enrollments in the stop-smoking program to 120 staff members per year.”

Attainable Employer Wellness Program Goals: Determine goals that challenge your business to change and that will demonstrate a real commitment to employee health. At the same time, set goals that are achievable. Goals that are set too far out of reach can be overwhelming and may become a barrier rather than a motivator.

Realistic Employer Wellness Program Goals: Write goals that are do-able, given the skills, time, finances and overall strategy of the business. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Timely Employer Wellness Program Goals: When do you hope to achieve the goal? Next week? Next year? Without a timeframe, the goal is still vague and is much less likely to galvanize resources and energy within your business.

“Reduce the percent of staff members who use tobacco from 20% to 10%” is much less of a challenge than “By the end of 2010, reduce the percent of staff members who use tobacco from 20% to 15%”.

Health Risk Assessment: Helping Quantify Employee Health help you quantify staff member health

An Health Risk Assessment Health Risk Assessments (HRAs) is an important tool to help you isolate the value of strong Employer Wellness Program Programs.

Health Risk Assessment: What is it?

Does the term “Health Risk Assessment” have you puzzled? If so, then you are not alone.  Unfortunately there is no universal standard definition or format for a Health Risk Assessment. A health risk assessment is both a procedure and a document, too, depending on the context — you must answer questions and ideally undergo some simple Employee Health Testing to develop a document that describes what’s good and bad about your current state of health.

To add confusion to the situation, there’s a field called health risk management. Talk to an OSHA inspector about health risk assessment and they will likely assume you’re referring to an assessment of contaminants and industrial chemicals in a factory or manufacturing facility.

Health Risk Assessment: The Typical Health Risk Assessment

A comprehensive health risk assessment is aimed at producing a concrete baseline of a person’s health, and includes most of these features:

blood pressure check,
testing for cancer,
blood glucose test, and
a analysis of the staff member’s health status.

Health Risk Assessments (HRAs) would assess the staff member’s:

lifestyle indicators,
medical conditions,
prescriptions medications,
functional concerns and abilities,
overall quality of life,
self-efficacy,
physical fitness level.