Wellness Articles

Think ahead: what unexpected challenges might come up as you implement your Employee Health and Wellness Program? How could you adapt and change the Employee Health and Wellness Program to meet those challenges?

• Look at the “what if’s?”
• What if your classroom space is suddenly no longer available?
• What if you can’t hold the Wellness Fair in the usual place?
• Have a ‘Plan B’ (or even Plan C or Plan D) in mind for when the “what if’s” happen.

• Build a team that can help with the Employee Health and Wellness Program
• Who else could teach the health education class if the regular instructor cancels at the last minute?
• Know what areas of expertise your staff has besides their ‘main’ job. For example, find out who has fitness instructor credentials besides just the physical therapist.
• Don’t wait for a crisis before you build a network of individuals that you can call on.

• Be ready to roll your sleeves up
• Jump in to fill a gap if you need to.
• YOU may have to help restock the milk case in the dining facility when the Dairy Month ‘Milk Mustache’ contest results in increased sales during lunch.

• Be willing (and ready) to respond to feedback about the Employee Health and Wellness Program
• Get participant feedback while the Employee Health and Wellness Program is ongoing. Then be ready to adapt to those suggestions.
• For example, if kids in a pediatric obesity Employee Health and Wellness Program fight the idea of completing exercise logs, then get a verbal summary of their activity for the week instead.

• Simplify Employee Health and Wellness Program
• If part of your Employee Health and Wellness Program is not working, try making that part less complicated.
• For example, if getting follow-up information is not going the way you planned, then make the process to get information easier OR decrease the number of pieces of information that you collect.

• Use lemons to make lemonade
• What do you do when the Employee Health and Wellness Program doesn’t turn out exactly as you planned? Look for what did turn out. Often, the ‘unexpected outcomes’ produce positive results.
• For example, one installation’s database to collect sick call data was made obsolete by a regional system. However, the installation database was able to be used in a different way to track vaccination information that improved delivery of care to Employees.
• At another installation, world events halted a new physical training program. Instead, Employee Health and Wellness Program materials were made into a fitness guide.

Take the time to plan Employee Health and Wellness Programs before they are started.

Effective planning enables better use of all your resources. Include all the steps below when you plan a Wellness activity.
• Do your homework - Locate the science and research that support your initiatives. Look for similar Employee Health and Wellness Programs that already exist.
• Determine the specific health need(s) - Use these needs to target initiatives to problems that are an issue for your population.
• Organize a team - A team is a resource multiplier. Network and build as many partnerships as you can.
• Make a plan, but don’t start completely from scratch. Make a written plan for your Employee Health and Wellness Program. Look for every opportunity to take advantage of resources that already exist. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• Select a focus - Choose one or two main target areas for Employee Health and Wellness Programs. Address all five stages of change in the target areas rather than trying to hit every possible Wellness topic.
• Determine your resources - What assets do you have? What assets will you need? How can you fill the gaps?
• Get Senior Management support - Think like Senior Management. Communicate the value of Wellness from Senior Management’s perspective.
• Begin the activity- Be flexible. Be prepared for unexpected challenges.
• Market the activity - Keep your Employee Health and Wellness Program visible for Senior Management, line and medical personnel, Employee Health and Wellness Program members, and potential partners and volunteers.
• Collect and analyze outcomes - Outcomes indicate Employee Health and Wellness Program impact. Begin with just a few outcomes – you don’t have to collect everything. Remember that it’s never too late to start measuring Employee Health and Wellness Program impact.
• Evaluate, improve and re-evaluate - Use participant feedback and Employee Health and Wellness Program outcomes to determine Employee Health and Wellness Program impact. Identify areas in need of improvement. Use outcomes to determine if expended resources were worth the results.

Why use small steps toward health behavior change?

Small steps give members immediate feedback on the changes they make towards better health. Measuring these small steps is also an excellent way to collect interim Employee Health and Wellness Program effectiveness data.

Employee Health and Wellness Program small steps make a big difference

Small steps for Employee Health and Wellness Program members
• Walk to work.
• Use fat free milk instead of whole milk.
• Each day think of two things you are grateful for.
• Do sit-ups while you watch TV.
• Drink water before a meal.
• Take 10 deep breaths to relieve tension.
• Eat half your dessert.
• Skip second helpings and buffets.

Measuring small Employee Health and Wellness Program steps
• Use short pre- and mid-point surveys to ask:
• How many glasses of water do you drink a day?
• How frequently you do eat fast food?
• How frequently do you skip a meal?
• How frequently do you engage in physical activity?
• How many servings of fruits and vegetables do you eat each day?

Use the results to show members how their health behaviors are changing for the better.

• Ask members to rate their health status and/or stress levels before and after an intervention.
• Add up individual (or team) steps and mark the progress on a map towards a far away destination.
• Be creative! Do not rely only on weight loss, BMI, or cholesterol tests as health status progress indicators or health behavior change feedback.

Wise words for taking small Employee Health and Wellness Program steps

• The first wealth is health. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• We are what we repeatedly do. (Aristotle)
• The victory is not always to the swift, but to those who keep moving. (CDC)
• There are 1440 minutes in every day…schedule 30 of them for physical activity. (CDC)

Why Employee Health and Wellness Program follow up?

Getting feedback from Employee Health and Wellness Program members serves two purposes: to obtain data that quantifies a Wellness Program’s impact, and to find ways to improve a Employee Health and Wellness Program.

Building follow up into your Employee Health and Wellness Program

Keep it simple
• Keep follow up to information you absolutely require. A three-question survey is more likely to get a response than one with 20 questions.
• Use email or phone for follow-up. Use personal, AKO, and installation email addresses; use cell phone and unit phone numbers.
• Go to the Employees: go to the unit or somewhere else they will all be gathered (like the APFT test location), and get follow up information there.
• Give members a stamped envelope addressed to you, with a printed form listing the information you will need.

Make it structured
• Tell members right from the beginning that you will be doing follow up after the Employee Health and Wellness Program is finished. Be specific about the information you will collect.
• If you need to do hands-on measurements, find out if members will be coming back to your location for another reason (like another clinic appointment). Ask them to stop by while they are in the building – or, better yet, go to where they will be.
• Ask members where they will be the next time you will be collecting data. They may already know their next duty station if they will be PCSing soon.
• Plan ahead for follow up and put it on the schedule. Planning to do follow up “when you have time” usually means follow up will never get done.

Make it catchy
• Give members something to go along with the request for information. For example, if you send an email to ask for information, send along a yummy recipe or a timely fitness tip.
• Schedule a ‘reunion’ day to collect follow up information. Invite members to come back and share successes and challenges. Have some (healthy) munchies available.
• Have a silly contest – the team with the most follow up data wins something, like having their photos posted on a prominently-placed bulletin board or an eggplant trophy, or some other fun thing.

Why bother to market your Employee Health and Wellness Programs?
Because of the transient nature of the many worker populations, you must market your Employee Health and Wellness Programs all the time. Your goal should be to keep your Employee Health and Wellness Programs as visible as possible.

Creative marketing can increase awareness of your Employee Health and Wellness Program for:
• Potential Employee Health and Wellness Program members
• Senior Management
• Line and medical personnel
• Potential partners and volunteers

Creative Employee Health and Wellness Program marketing ideas

Involve Senior Management in your marketing Employee Health and Wellness Program as frequently as possible.
• For example: invite Senior Management to judge a Employee Health and Wellness Program logo contest.

Link your Employee Health and Wellness Programs to national advertising campaigns
• …like the Great American Smokeout and the Dairy Council’s Milk Mustache campaign.

Work closely with personnel in the corporate office.
• Submit articles about your Employee Health and Wellness Programs that coincide with National Health Observances. For example: highlight your Asthma Program in May, which is National Asthma Awareness Month.
• Let the corporate office know you can always provide an article to them when they run short on material. (Then make sure you always follow through.)
Word of mouth is the most effective advertisement for your Employee Health and Wellness Program
• Use real individuals in your advertising: enlist the help of successful Employee Health and Wellness Program members or use Employees and other post personnel for your marketing materials, when possible.
• Create “buzz” by incorporating an element of competition: which ‘team’ had the most steps over the past week? Which department engaged most frequently in physical activity?
Take advantage of technology
• Use post television and radio resources.
• Use email whenever you can.
Don’t just market your Employee Health and Wellness Program to potential members, but market the opportunities for others to be involved, as well.
• For example: does the Red Cross know you can always use a volunteer? Do other departments/clinics know that you can always use personnel with some temporary down time?
Don’t be “old news”
• If you put advertising materials up, be sure to take them down in a timely manner.
• Update marketing logos and themes as appropriate.

What is Employee Health and Wellness Program data?

Employee Health and Wellness Program data is information that is collected about your Employee Health and Wellness Program. All Employee Health and Wellness Programs should include data as an integral part of the Employee Health and Wellness Program plan.

Why should you care about Employee Health and Wellness Program data?

Information tells the Wellness story. Information is the tangible evidence of a Wellness Program’s impact.

Building data into Employee Health and Wellness Programs

Why bother with Employee Health and Wellness Program Data?

You need Employee Health and Wellness Program data to:
• Evaluate whether or not your Employee Health and Wellness Program is working.
• Answer the ‘so what?’ about the need for a Employee Health and Wellness Program.
• Provide information to Senior Management about the impact of the Employee Health and Wellness Program.
• Write a budget justification so you can secure Employee Health and Wellness Program resources.
• Use Employee Health and Wellness Program resources efficiently and market your Employee Health and Wellness Program more effectively.

Where to begin collecting Employee Health and Wellness Program data:
• MAKE A PLAN to collect the data: decide what, when, and how data will be collected.
• Find out what data is ALREADY BEING COLLECTED.
o For example: use dairy sales data in the dining facility to measure the impact of a milk marketing/dairy month campaign.
• Begin collecting JUST A FEW small pieces of information. Be creative!
o For example: BMI, APFT scores (before & after), tobacco quit rates

IT’S NEVER TO LATE TO START collecting Employee Health and Wellness Program data.

Innovative Employee Health and Wellness Program data strategies
• Use local college/graduate students to help collect, input, and analyze Employee Health and Wellness Program data.
• If your business has an internship program, get to know the Internship Director. Take advantage of intern resources – including having the Director and/or interns implement the data collection plan for your Employee Health and Wellness Program.
• Use data to let upper management know about the Employee Health and Wellness Programs affect on the staff members.

Present this information at their monthly/quarterly meetings.
• Use creative follow-up strategies to get data. Phone calls can be effective, but also consider email, mailed surveys with return postage provided, and going to the units in person to collect the information.
• Make data collection ‘fun’ for Employee Health and Wellness Program members.
o For example: use a team approach – the team with the ‘best’ overall results gets some sort of award or recognition.
• ALWAYS relate the impact of your Employee Health and Wellness Program to readiness.

Collaboration and Effective Employee Health and Wellness Programs

Why should you collaborate?

Active, ongoing partnerships and cooperative efforts multiply Employee Health and Wellness Program resources in order to better serve Employees and their families.

How can you build collaboration into a Employee Health and Wellness Program?

Get Ready…
• Brainstorm a list of every potential Wellness partner you can think of. Be creative!
• Be a politician: introduce yourself to everyone BEFORE you need their help.
• Develop a plan to get Senior Management support from as high up the chain as possible. Ensure that to include specific ways that your Employee Health and Wellness Program will impact force readiness.
• Determine how YOU can help your partners (not just what they can do for you).

Be Steady…
• Solicit input from everyone that your Employee Health and Wellness Program will affect. Make a special effort to talk to the individuals closest to Employee Health and Wellness Program implementation (those with “boots on the ground”).
• The most frequently asked questions should be: “What would you suggest?” and “How do you think this would work best?”
• Locate someone who has done the same type of Employee Health and Wellness Program before and ask their advice. (Hint: the Employee Health and Wellness Program has a list of many Wellness POCs.)
• Plan NOW to show Employee Health and Wellness Program effectiveness. Identify who may ALREADY BE COLLECTING information that will show the Employee Health and Wellness Program is working.

Get Set…
• Step back and review your Employee Health and Wellness Program from a potential partner’s point of view.
• Brainstorm questions your collaborators might have, and have the answers ready.
• Be ready to frame your “selling points” in terms that are important to each specific partner.
• Put the Employee Health and Wellness Program benefits in language your collaborators will understand.
• Emphasize to potential partners how this Employee Health and Wellness Program will provide benefit to them.

And Go…
• Build as many partnerships as you can BEFORE you implement a Employee Health and Wellness Program.
• Make your partnerships a two-way street: always let your collaborators know what you can do for them – then follow-up and do what you say you would do.
• Maintain Senior Management support by providing a regular flow of information. Invite Senior Management participation in the Employee Health and Wellness Program and special events whenever possible. (Hint: they make great judges if you have a contest.)
• Provide regular feedback to your collaborators.
• Don’t hog the spotlight: let your collaborators share in the visibility of the Employee Health and Wellness Program.