Company Health and Wellness : What is a Corporate Health Promotion Program?

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to set up healthy workplaces focused on safety at the workplace and injury prevention for staff members.

More recently, programs are designed to assist  workers to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or quitting smoking. Campaigns to increase awareness, educational sessions to broaden knowledge, opportunities to learn new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for workers to make healthy choices are frequently included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a great way to reach people, since most adult Canadians invest 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 understood that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When individuals are satisfied with their job, they are more advantageous and tend to be healthier. When staff members feel that the environment at work is detrimental, they feel stressed. Stress has a big effect 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 organization overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that businesses must genuinely are concerned about the wellness of their staff members.

Employers today who want to attract and retain good staff members have leaders who be aware of the connection 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 providing support to balance work and home life.

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

How does workplace wellness advance the corporation?

A workplace wellness plan can help a corporation to:

• attract and keep staff members;
• reduce the costs of disability, prescriptions, and absenteeism;
• reduce the effects of a stressful workplace;
• reduce health expenditures or keep them contained; and
• better morale by organizing a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Worksite Wellness Programs Profit employees?

staff members of employers that have a Worksite 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 wellbeing;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productiveness and performance at work;
• reduced personal healthcare costs; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health issues.

Both employers and employees have a responsibility for planning a healthy workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in good health, and the corporation is expected to support an environment that allows employees to maintain good 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 planning a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of staff members, implementing a positive work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep staff members healthy and happy at work. A great Corporate Wellness Program has an impact on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing.