Starting a Employer Wellness Program

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).