Company Health and Wellness : What is a Employee Wellness Program?

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people alter their lifestyle to move toward a state of good health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle modification can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, alter behavior, and set up environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Employee Wellness Program: Action Steps

The process of building a Company Health Promotion Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and implementing the programs
• Building in motivational incentives
• Measuring the influence
• Revising programs based on evaluation outcomes

It may even include developing policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your workplace (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Employee Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an employer assessment
• Obtain upper management reinforcement
• Establish a Company Health Promotion Program Committee
• Get employee input
• Establish goals
• Design and start program activities
• Select incentives and rewards
• Evaluate outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through comprehensive Employee Wellness Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help staff members live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs. In fact, one of the objectives and goals of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to improve the proportion of staff members that participate in a comprehensive Employee Wellness Program at their workplace to 75 percent.