Category — Employee Assistance Programs

• Make sure that your building’s stairways are clean, attractive and safe, and post signs encouraging employees to use the stairs.
• Establish a wellness newsletter or intranet.
• Encourage the Activity Tracker and bolster employees to track their physical exercise every week.
• Be creative, and make the most of the workspace you have. By way of example, mark off a safe walking path inside or around the building. You might also set up a training circuit, highlighting features of the workplace such as stairs.
• Provide physical exercise opportunities at different times to accommodate night-, shift-, and part-time workers.
• For staff members in remote or satellite offices, offer equal access to key pushes via the intranet. Adapt challenges to suit their environment and take advantage of local facilities and resources.
• Make physical exercise available to workers with special needs. Adapt information and activities for any employee who are visually impaired or physically disabled as well as for individuals who speak English as a second language.
• Educate workers about physical activity using information from reputable sources such as the Alberta Centre for Active Living.
• Offer facilities that invite worksite physical exercise. Possibilities include bike racks, exercise room, change rooms with lockers and showers, and safe and attractive grounds for walking.
• Have walking meetings.
• Encourage workers to walk to co-workers’ offices instead of e-mailing or phoning.
• Set up a stretching room. This low-cost initiative requires only a room, stretching mats, stability balls and medicine balls. Put up posters that show stretches and exercises.
• Give incentives such as shoe bags, ball caps, T-shirts or water bottles to reward employee participation.
• Loan out pedometers for three months, so that employees are able to find out how many steps they usually take and how much activity they need to add to get basic health benefits.
• Set aside space for employees to plant and maintain a flowerbed or garden at the workplace. Use any resulting produce for meetings and potluck lunches or donate it to charity.
• Plan a workplace wellness and health fair.
• Hire a qualified fitness specialist to design and manage an onsite fitness facility.
• Supply employees with active wear that displays the organization logo.

• Organize a launch event to create excitement about upcoming activities and to set up a social climate that establishes being active as the norm.
• Design and encourage monthly or bi-monthly corporation programs that are fun and active, e.g., picnics with physical games, employee tournaments and dragon boat racing. Urge families to join in by including all-ages programs such as relay races, soccer matches, bocce ball and baseball games.
• Implement a swim club at a local pool. Invite groups of staff members to swim the distance of a nearby lake. Convert kilometres to lengths and reward staff members who complete the swim. Set up a challenge between staff members and managers to see who covers the greatest distance.
• Post a sign-up board where employee can join a group or find a buddy to take part in activities of interest.
• Establish a employer badminton tournament that lasts several months, with each employee playing once a week. Post the results as the tournament progresses.
• Establish an office Olympics, World Cup, Wimbledon or Masters Games. Invite teams to compete in several activities over a month. Reward everyone who participates.
• Create a point system in which one minute of exercise equals one point. Set a target, and post a chart where all employees are able to track their points. Reward the first group to reach that target.
• Establish a stair climb challenge. Post a chart at the top of the stairwell, and encourage employees to track the number of flights of stairs they climb each workday. Set up teams, and award a prize to the first group to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest.
• Display and promote a sign-up board for lunchtime walking groups.
• Establish a walk “across this country” Select a route, discover how many steps it would take to walk that distance and challenge staff members to do it. Give or loan pedometers to staff members, and ask them to record the number of steps they take. Or, if you cannot afford pedometers, track the minutes walked. Set up a challenge between staff members and managers to see who can walk across this country first.
• Design a walk to work club. Acknowledge workers who either walk to work or walk to public transit.
• Have a volunteer group leader guide weekly lunchtime power walks.
• Design a million-step challenge. Form groups, challenge each group to walk a combined total of a million steps and reward the winner. Departments or sites might compete with each other and with management.
• Challenge staff members to walk 10,000 steps a day. Buy pedometers for all participating staff members or, if you can’t afford that, make pedometers available at a reduced rate. Provide tips for increasing daily steps, and reward staff members who succeed.

There is no one correct way to approach wellness programs but winning programs share common success factors. These include management support and responsibility, employee participation, adequate resources, and a policy concerning health that goes hand in hand with the organization’s mission, vision and values.

Workplace Health Promotion Program: A Range of Approaches

Although the objective is to eventually have a long-term, inclusive wellness program, some corporations prefer to start with a single program at a basic level. By way of example, the first steps might be as simple as offering lunch-hour sessions on first aid or healthy eating; or they might launch a pilot project to learn how interested employees are to ensure employees needs are being met before taking on anything more ambitious. This approach provides a chance to show the effect on employees and the workplace so senior staff will be more willing to consider a larger and more far-reaching strategy.

Other organizations plan a variety of drives to meet the needs of the different sorts of people that make up their workforce. And some decide to cultivate a sound organization case, complete with a health plan, before beginning any type of program. Employers want to ensure that a new program is totally integrated with their overall organization vision and mission.

Workplace Health Promotion Program: Success Factors

Whether your business chooses to think big from the outset or to start with something smaller, always keep in mind the following key success factors:

• support and participation from management;
• employee participation in creating;
• programs that meet employee needs;
• a realistic budget; and
• continuous review.

In sports, a game plan is a series of steps that a team must follow to accomplish its objective of winning. Most winning teams plan to win. Organizations also need game plans, even if they do not call them by that name.

Good planning will help to be sure that your wellness program happens the way you want it to, and that costs can be identified in advance and kept within budget. Good planning prevents small issues from becoming bigger.

Steps in Planning a Workplace Wellness Program

Get upper management backing. You may need to foster a corporation case to convince managers that the wellness program is a corporation strategy-that employee health and job satisfaction impacts their work rate. employees need to see evidence that upper management believes in and is committed to employee health.

Establish a planning committee. Members have the potential to include representatives from employee groups as well as from human resources, health and safety, and communications.

Accumulate information. To prove that your Employee Health Promotion Program is beneficial, establish a benchmark before the program begins. You may wish to look at employee satisfaction, absenteeism rates, stress levels, prescription expenditures or WCB expenses. Review what workplace facilities are available to support employees to make healthy choices such as showers and change areas or a secure place to store a bicycle. Review employee needs through a survey or questionnaire, suggestion box or focus group. Communicate the outcome.

Organize the plan to reflect the information gathered. Include program objectives, activities and how you are going to measure whether your objectives were met. Keep the plan flexible. You may have to change direction in response to employee feedback or changes in the company’s structure.

Get management approval. Support for employee time and a budget are necessitated.

Put activities in place. Offer a variety of activities that create awareness, broaden knowledge, advance skills, and support social interaction. (Activities might include walking clubs, participation in national campaigns such as Company Wellness Programs Week, SummerActive, WinterActive, corporate challenge, golf days, and newsletters that support information about neighborhood resources.) Workplaces can also make it easier for workers to make healthy choices by offering flextime to allow workers to fit exercise in when it is convenient or by subsidizing programs in cooperation with neighborhood or private fitness facilities. A policy on catering for gatherings has the potential to ensure that healthy foods are available.

Review the plan. Share your successes with others, learn from your mistakes and modify activities.

A wellness program doesn’t have to be complicated or a huge cost. Just do it. Get reinforcement from senior staff, bring a few committed people together to generate some ideas and get started.

How does it feel to walk into your workplace? Do people look content? Is the place well lit and cheerful? Do you feel welcome, wanted and energized? Or do you feel a dark cloud descend upon you, and count the hours until you have the potential to leave?
The power of the workplace environment on the health & wellness of employees is profound. First there is the physical look, feel, smell, and sounds of the place. Then you’re affected by the policies, like whether others are allowed to light up around you. As time passes, more subtle factors start to affect you. Do your attempts to adopt a healthier lifestyle get recognized at work, or are they sabotaged? Are your managers inspiring you by being healthy role models? Do you get regular opportunities to discover healthier behaviors?
In a supportive environment, employees feel that the business they work for supports them with encouragement, opportunity, and rewards for healthy lifestyles. And the spirit that results is highly contagious. Staff Members who feel cared are naturally more loyal and productive.
The following ideas will help you transform your workplace environment into one that actually supports the wellness of your employees and business.

Corporate Wellness Program Ideas for Fostering Supportive Environments

Wellness Friendly Facilities

When you arrive at a worksite, do you feel comfortable? Could you be happy working there? Is there sufficient light and clean air? Are there pleasant work areas, places to eat decent meals, take a walk before lunch? Close your eyes. How does it smell? Sound? Do the employees have sufficient space?
• Vending machines with healthy diet choices like low-fat milk, fruits, sugar-free and caffeine-free beverages and low-calorie snacks
• Workout area, walking paths, playing fields, basketball hoop, or other exercise opportunities workplace or nearby
• Cafeteria offers healthy foods including a salad bar with low-fat dressing
• Natural light is used whenever possible; all lighting is appropriate and adequate
• Heating and ventilation is adjustable, comfortable and healthful
• No cigarette machines, ashtrays, or smoking areas onsite
• Noise levels are safe and conducive to concentration
• Work station furniture conforms to ergometric standards
• Safety risks have been eliminated
• Lockers and showers are available for employees who exercise before work or while on breaks
• Stairs are clean and well lit, convenient and pleasant to use
Familiarity can make it hard to evaluate a workplace. People get used to hectic conditions and forget that conditions ever bothered them. It may provce useful to ask people who are unfamiliar with your workplace to walk through with you. Professional consultants can also help.

Proactive Wellness Policies

One clear way to impact behavior is through policies and procedures. If nurses aren’t permitted to work more than twelve hours consecutively, there will be less medication errors. If parents are afforded flextime to manage their children’s needs, they’ll be less stressed. If staff members have the potential to apply unused sick days to planned vacation time, they’ll save them up instead of calling in sick to use them all.

Supportive corporate policies may include:

• Seatbelt use necessitated in employer vehicles
• Drug and alcohol policies are appropriate to the industry
• Emergency procedures are developed, known, and practiced
• Flexible work schedules allow workers to exercise, go to children’s school conferences, etc.
• Nonsmoking policy is enforced
• Excessive overtime is discouraged
• Membership at fitness facility is partially reimbursed
• Shift workers are scheduled to allow adequate rest
• Health Care Costs coverage rewards good health
• Rates of Absenteeism policy rewards employees who don’t use sick days
• Employee Assistance Program(EAP) available to help staff members with chemical dependencies, depression, family problems
• Meaningful consequences are carried out for unsafe, unhealthy, prohibited behavior.  Your organization may have a policy against alcohol use during work hours, but if everyone looks the other way when someone comes back from lunch smelling like beer, the culture is one that permits drinking during lunch-and one in which written policies have the potential to be safely ignored. Prohibited behaviors must be confronted promptly. Otherwise your policies become mere lip service instead of springboards to health.

Consistent Recognition And Rewards For Success

Attention, praise, and rewards are provided for wellness achievements.
You can show you value the Company Wellness Programs by celebrating your programs and those who’ve made lifestyle improvements in corporation newsletters, on bulletin boards, and at yearly banquets, meetings, and celebrations. Incentives are a direct way to demonstrate appreciation, too.
Wellness mentors are sought and applauded, too. Employees who support others’ efforts to better their health are noticed and appreciated. Peer modeling and mentoring classes are able to promote those who enjoy assisting others to step forward into a new role.

Managers Model And Support Healthier Behavior

Nothing might say “We encourage you to exercise frequently” better than a manager going on a bike ride during the lunch hour–or your supervisor sitting next to you in a weight management class. Wellness activities reward relaxed interaction between people from different departments and at different echelons in the chain of command. That promotes relaxed communication and a feeling of solidarity that is pure gold.
Managers can also provide support for staff members who are working on working on their health. It doesn’t take anything fancy-just a “good job” or “nice to see you at the gym” is able to put a glow on the cheeks of most of us.
Managers can also help by allowing employees the flexibility to attend wellness programs.

Ongoing Company Health Promotion Programs

It’s valuable to give staff members the sense that the wellness program is a permanent and valuable part of the corporation, not a corporation fad. That can start as soon as a new employee is hired.
New employees are oriented to the wellness program as one of the employee benefits. Information about the program ought to be presented by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable person who encourages the new employee to take part.
The workers are familiar with the ongoing wellness programs.
The wellness programs and wellness coordinator are well known in the business. Opportunities to participate are abundant and it’s easy to sign up.
A wide variety of awareness classes are provided. There are issues of interest for everyone.

These are simple events that have the potential to be done within your corporation to excite healthy behaviors during a contest or during other times. The intention is to bolster employee participation. Some examples:
• Establish a sub-committee of enthusiastic staff members who will help promote the fitness program by offering ideas, ideas and encouragement to fellow staff members.
• Designate monthly mailbox flyers to promote a contest or support fitness-related education/encouragement information.
• Send a periodic voicemail on each member’s phone with encouraging wellness messages.
• Make available regular cumulative health progress reports.
• Provide reduced fat or heart-healthy lunch selections once a week in your cafeteria or have staff members bring a healthy snack to share, with a recipe book compiled at the end of the contest or specified time period (such as a National Nutrition Month in March).
• Distribute employee gifts (pedometers or other novelty item related to some aspect of your contest theme) as registration begins.
• Allocate for workers “Fitness 15-Minute Walk Breaks;” corporation time to walk, physical activity, etc. If appropriate, you could use a space not currently used to set up a treadmill, elliptical, bicycle, some no cost weights and relaxing music.
• Have a T-shirt design contest.
• Designate posters to map contest (or fitness) progress and to serve as reminder of your goals/objectives:
   • Use push pins or other identifiers for each individual to put up in the office showing how they have progressed – employees can get very creative with this and design pins that reflect their personalities.
   • Use a bar graph to compare progress.
   • Use a “thermometer” type graphic and illustrate progress – consider a different, fitness-related graphic all together and color it in as you progress.
• Provide aerobic dance or physical activity videos in your conference or break rooms.
• Compile a list of organized activities in the neighborhood that offer opportunities to get staff members working out by participating as a group (below are just a few):
   • Race For The Cure
   • March of Dimes Walk America event
   • Juvenile Diabetes Research
   • Foundation Walk to Cure
   • American Heart Association’s Heart Walk
   • American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life
   • American Lung Association’s Lung Run
   • Local marathons or special neighborhood walks or runs
• Create or attend a health-and-fitness retreat.
• Have a soup-and-salad luncheon followed by a hula-hoop contest!
• Use the mall as an alternate walking location during inclement weather.
• Designate “Move it Mondays” – allow staff members to take an extra ten minutes at lunch for exercise.
• Designate “Tasty Tuesdays” – support employees with low-calorie treats/snacks.
• Create “Walking Wednesdays”- allow staff members to take an extra ten minutes at lunchtime to walk, or “Wacky Wednesdays” that allow staff members to explore new exercises.
• Designate “Thirsty Thursdays” – make healthy smoothies or juice drinks for staff members.
• Designate “Fresh Fruit Fridays” for employee – offer seasonal fruit treats.
• Send weekly physical activity tips to workers via the most effective communications vehicle in your workplace.
• Partner with another organization representative for local media events coordinated through your advertising or communication department.
• Urge departmental teams to challenge each other (examples: Customer Service, Marketing, Medical Support).
• Create walking clubs with executive/supervisory leadership.
• Seek out local aerobic opportunities or classes through churches, community groups, college, YMCA, etc.
• Contact several local area gyms and ask if they can or will offer group discounts for exercise programs, waive enrollment fees, or set up a 12-week program as opposed to signing an extended contract.
• Hold a Frozen Yogurt Social – “Reap the Benefits of Fitness.”
• Map out a walking track around the facility including the number of laps necessitated for one mile.

These are brief informational “Health Tips” in an e-mail format on many different health-related topics. You have the potential to appoint someone within your employer to find specific topics on the Internet from sites that are in the public domain or topics can be purchased from organizations. Some qualified sources include:
• Hope Health
• Sound Ideas, Inc.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• National Institutes of Health

These e-mails are able to be sent daily, weekly or monthly. Our experience indicates weekly is the best frequency.

If the majority of your staff members do not have e-mail, consider providing the information to them through:
• Bulletin boards
• Check stuffers
• Mailbox stuffers
• Newsletters

SAMPLE #1 Worksite Wellness E-mail Messages

From: Corporate Health Promotion Program
To: Wellness Team
Subject: Layering for Exercise

One way to help ensure enjoyment of a winter walk (or run) is to make sure you’re dressed properly for the weather. And the secret to that, for a winter workout, is to dress in layers.
Layer 1 — Avoid 100% cotton in the first layer, next to your skin. Cotton holds perspiration. Wear underwear made from manmade fabrics to wick perspiration away from skin.
Layer 2 — A zippered sweatshirt and sweatpants will keep you warm. Just open the zipper if you get too warm.
Layer 3 — If necessitated, over the sweatsuit, you can add a waterproof and windproof jacket. If it’s very cold, you may want to wear a jacket made with goose down.
Hands — Mittens will keep your hands warmer than gloves.
Feet — Wear socks made from wool or manmade fabrics that keep your feet dry and warm. Avoid 100 percent cotton socks. Don’t wear sneakers or boots that fit too tightly … this will restrict blood flow and your feet will end up feeling colder.
Head — About 40% of your body’s heat is lost through your head. Wear a hat and cover your ears.
Lips — Don’t forget lip balm containing sunscreen … even in winter!

SAMPLE #2 Job Site Wellness E-mail Messages

From: Workplace Wellness Program
To: Wellness Team
Subject: Energy Boosts

Need an energy boost? Here are some ideas for tapping into your own energy sources — and most require little effort.
• Get an extra hour of sleep. No surprise here — it can make a sizable difference in your energy level the following day.
• Eat less more often. Have little, balanced meals or snacks throughout your day for a steady supply of fuel and energy. Make note of which foods seem to boost your energy level.
• Drink enough water. Dehydration contributes to fatigue, which you are able to offset by drinking water throughout the day.
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine. Both have the potential to contribute to dehydration and fatigue. They also seem to disrupt sleep patterns.

Wellness Seminars / Lunch and Learn Programs are learning sessions planned and organized by you to meet specific goals. Come up with a topic and select a speaker. Choose a site for the “Lunch and Learn” session, usually a lunchroom or break room. Depending on your budget and objectives, staff members have the potential to brown bag the lunch or you might provide the meal. Meetings have the potential to be mandatory or elective, your choice.
Experience tells us the most success will be seen if these Wellness Seminars / Lunch and Learn Programs are elective and if the employer provides lunch.
Goals for Wellness Seminars / Lunch and Learn Programs

Education on a specific health issue. You may want to choose one of your group’s top diagnoses. Examples are:
• Diabetes – diabetes prevention and care by a certified diabetic educator
• Cardiovascular disease – cardiovascular health (individual counseling sessions with a dietician)
• Hypertension
• Hyperlipidemia
• Flu and pneumonia
• Breast cancer – breast health or breast self-exam sessions can be taught by a trained instructor

Education on medical insurance benefits:
• Diabetes – what are the covered benefits, where to purchase diabetic supplies, support groups for workers with diabetes.
• Workplace Wellness Program Benefits
• Well baby/child care.

Education on the effect of enrolling in your health plan or local health department’s health education programs or disease management programs. Example programs:
• Diabetes
• Respiratory
• Low-Back Pain
• Cardiovascular
• Tobacco use

Community Resource Speakers for Wellness Seminars / Lunch and Learn Programs
• Local health plan office
• Local heart association
• Local cancer society
• Pharmacies – many pharmacists are available to speak on pharmacy-related concerns.
• Prescription Drug Corporations – numerous corporations have standard presentations developed for employers that are offered free of charge to use at your own direction. Some examples are:
   • Know Your Numbers (elevated blood lipids) – Pfizer
   • Respiratory Wellness (flu and pneumonia) – Pfizer
   • Men’s and Women’s Health – Pfizer
• Local gyms/personal trainers/YMCA – can discuss walking safety, benefits of walking, swimming and aerobics.
• Yoga and/or Pilates instructors
• Running, cycling club representatives
• Local hospital nutritionists
• Stamp Out Smoking – Tobacco Coalition representatives

Topics for Wellness Seminars / Lunch and Learn Programs

• Cycling – benefits and opportunities for cycling
• Nutrition and health (Heart Healthy lunch for all attendees)
• Heart health
• Women’s health issues
• How to recognize the signs and symptoms of heart attack and stroke
• National Employee Fitness Day within the office setting – Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness representatives can reward event
• Exercise tolerance and healthy heart problems
• Beginning an exercise program – include the effect of seeing the doctor before beginning of any new exercise program
• Self-defense
• Domestic abuse
• Safety in general
• Exercise safety
• Walking/running benefits and safety tips Tobacco dangers and avoidance

Conducting an Employee Fitness Challenge at your workplace is a fun and exciting way to raise awareness among staff members about the significance of beginning and sustaining an physical activity program. It is a concentrated effort in which to engage them in physical exercise for a specific time period that, hopefully, will help them start a healthy habit that will last a lifetime.
Still, it is important to take part in wellness year-round. This section provides a comprehensive list of Worksite Wellness Program ideas that have been implemented within wellness programs.
All ideas presented in this section have been thriving for one or both of the entities. Each exercise/idea has the potential to be used as a stand-alone event, even if you don’t conduct a fitness contest, or has the potential to be held in conjunction with your Employee Fitness Contest.
You may want to choose some of the ideas you believe will work for your staff members or think of others and begin your initiative to establish a better state of health.

Research studies have repeatedly shown that accross the board Corporate Wellness Programs, or Corporate Wellness Programs, can reduce medical care and insurance expenditures, cut down on absenteeism, and improve success and work rate. Other benefits shown in research studies include improved ability to attract and retain key personnel, greater employee allegiance, and improved public conception of the organization.

Health Care and Insurance expenditures

A number of research studies offer evidence of reduced medical and insurance costs for participants in Workplace Health Promotion Programs, particularly wellness programs involving physical activity.

For $30 per person, the Bank of America implemented a Worksite Wellness Program for retirees using a risk assessment questionnaire, self-care books and other mailed materials. Insurance claims were reduced an average of $164 per year in this group while they increased $15 for the control group. Since they were able to document significant changes in risk behavior, they anticipate greater savings in future years.

Pacific Bell’s FitWorks participants claim $300 less per case for a one-year savings of $700,000. Savings for conditions related to a sedentary lifestyle are $722 per case.

Coca Cola stated a reduction in health care|medical|medical care|healthcare} claims with an exercise program alone, saving $500 per employee per year for the workers (60%) who joined their HealthWorks physical activity program. Prudential Insurance Business reports that the business’s major medical expenditures dropped from $574 to $312 for each colleague in its wellness program.

Decreased Absenteeism

Absenteeism has been determined to be impacted by wellness programs. The evidence indicates a significant reduction in absenteeism and resultant dollars saved as a result of employee exercise program.

Pacific Bell’s FitWorks program lowered absent days .8 percent to save $2 million in one year. FitWorks participants also spent 3.3 days less on short-term disability for an additional savings of $4.7 million.

Focusing Worksite Health Promotion Program efforts on high-risk employees has the potential to lead to better results. A national manufacturing business reports a decline of 12.2% in illness days for these employees.

A two-year study by The DuPont Corporation of the effect of its all-inclusive Company Health Promotion Program on absences among workers reports that blue-collar workers at intervention sites had a 14% decline in disability days vs. 5.8% decline for controls. There were a total of 11,726 fewer net disability days.

Enhanced Performance, Productivity and Morale

A number of employers with Employee Health Promotion Programs report documented improvement in job attitude, work performance, energy level, and/or overall morale among program participants–all critical factors in enhancing work rate.

A Johnson & Johnson study reported that employee attitude changes were greater at Worksite Health Promotion Program intervention sites with significant beneficial attitude changes noted in the categories of company commitment, supervision, on the job conditions, job competence/security, and pay/benefits.

In a Canadian government study, the Canada Life Assurance Organization experimental group realized a 4 percent increase in productiveness after starting a employer fitness program, compared to the control group. Further, 47 percent of program participants published that they felt more alert, had better rapport with their co-employees, and generally enjoyed their work more.

Swedish investigators observed that mental performance was significantly better in physically fit staff members than in non-fit staff members. Fit staff members committed 27% fewer errors on tasks involving concentration and short-term memory, as compared with the performance of non-fit staff members.

The Bottom Line

The following sample of Corporate Health Promotion Programs wellness program results have been stated by individual employers:

Business: Dollars Saved/Dollars Spent

• Bank of America (Fries): $5.96/$1
• PacBell: $3.10/$1
• Wisconsin School District Insurance Group: $4.47/$1
• Prudential Insurance: $2.90/$1
• Bank of America (Leigh): $4.73/$1
• General Mills: $3.50/$1

Summary

There is strong evidence that a sizable portion of the billions of dollars currently invested by employers on health-related costs is preventable by means of Workplace Wellness Programs. Well-planned, accross the board Workplace Wellness Programs (Workplace Wellness Programs and Workplace Wellness Programs) have been demonstrated to be cost-effective, particularly when the Workplace Wellness Programs is matched to the health issues of the specific employee.

Free Workplace Health Promotion Programs and Low Cost Health Management Alternatives

Develop a no cost Employee Health Promotion Program or run a thriving health management program in the workplace for little or no cost to your employer. The advantages of workplace wellness and learning how to start a health management program at work are numerous. The articles on health management have generated a variety of questions, mostly from wellness providers but also from corporations trying to start their own wellness workplace programs. There are a number of things to do to start a thriving health management program at work.

Recommendations for Starting a Free or Low Cost Worksite Wellness Program

Prior to starting an inexpensive or free wellness program for your organization, learn more about what employees desire. Survey employees to learn more about their wellness problems. Keep the survey confidential to safeguard employees’ identities. Typically the most popular workplace wellness subject matters are tobacco cessation, weight loss problems and heart and blood lipid health.

Look for Workplace Wellness Program Freebies

Look for who will come in for free to talk to employees and look into partnerships with outside agents involved with workplace wellness. For example, contact a local branch of a well-known weight loss company and ask if someone has the potential to come in and talk to employees. Seek agencies that are willing to come in and talk about issues related to wellness at no cost to employees, in exchange for something from you.

Find Company Health Promotion Program Partnerships

Working with a weight loss business to set up a speaking engagement for employees is an excellent opportunity to explore a potential wellness partnership. The weight loss business may say that if 10 employees join the program, they will hold regular meetings at business headquarters for the people who joined. The weight loss group also might offer business employees a discount if multiple people join the program.

Nonprofits an Untapped Health Leadership Resource

There are also plenty of nonprofit agencies who would be thrilled to visit a corporation to discuss health management. But it’s up to you to offer them something in return. For example, if the MS Society came in and talked about the signs of MS, the corporation might offer to organize an MS walk (in keeping with corporation health management goals/objectives, right?), or an auction with employee and corporation-donated items where the proceeds go to MS. The people at the nonprofit agencies would be glad to open a dialog with your corporation and to talk about what they would want in return for a speaking engagement. In a myriad of cases, they won’t need anything at all for a first meeting.

Gathering Data and Evaluating Company Wellness Program Results

Gathering data and analyzing results of a Employee Health Promotion Program is able to be tricky because of HIPPA laws. Still, if at least ten workers joined the weight loss program, or 20 people take part daily in the all-new “Let’s Walk a Mile at Lunch” program, that sort of progress is able to speak strongly to senior staff. And, employer successes will potentially give senior staff more incentive to provide money for additional health management and Employee Health Promotion Programs in the future.