Posted by Employer Wellness | Posted in Employer Wellness | Posted on 03-10-2008
The workplace environment is a powerful, but frequently overlooked, element in managing staff member health. Here we will identify some of the best-practices in creating 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 workplace policy increases the likelihood that staff members will try to quit smoking and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Employer Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase 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 creating a Employer Wellness Program and workplace environment that encourages staff member health.
In an era of ever-increasing health care costs and fervent competition, corporations have a vested interest in the health of their staff members. Studies have found that, on average, staff members with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower health care expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than staff members with unhealthy behaviors.
Employee Health Promotion Program: Securing Upper Management Support
Employer Wellness Program support from the uppermost level of upper management is essential to your success in creating a culture of health within your workplace. Look for Employer Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can sway other leaders. (It’s not necessary that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Health Promotion 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 workplace policies, physical environment, and social norms.
Gain Employer Wellness Program Staff and Financing
Starting and maintaining a Employer Wellness Program within your employer needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your employer is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Health Promotion Program. There are a number of ways to find an individual with the needed skills to guide and support your employer’s Employee Health Promotion 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 funding. If possible, include the creation of a workplace environment that supports the Employer Wellness Program as a permanent component of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your employer.
Worker Involvement in the Employer Wellness Program
Pulling together a cross section of staff members to advise your employer’s Employer Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of staff members. In addition, these staff members can support 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 powerful first steps in turning a Employer Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace 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 creating a Employee Health Promotion Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between staff member health and your employer’s ability to achieve its overall mission.
Branding your employer’s Employer Wellness Program sends a message to staff members that the employer’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Select 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 employer offers to promote healthy behaviors.
Determine Your Existing Employer Wellness Program Situation
Exactly how your employer establishes a Employer Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your employer and employee population.
Determine how the current workplace 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 staff members’ 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 Goals and Priorities
Use what you’ve learned about the health of the employees and about your current workplace environment to determine your employer’s Employer Wellness Program priorities. From those Employer Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employer Wellness Program goals for improving the health of the employees and your employer’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.
Select Employer Wellness Program Procedures
Focus your employer’s Employer Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on tactics 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 tactics 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 employer. Work plans keep your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to start 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 start 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 health care claims.
Report both your Employer Wellness Program successes in building a healthy workplace 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 staff members 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).