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1. Senior management involvement in the Employee Health and Wellness Program- Evidence of enthusiastic commitment and involvement of senior management helps workers understand their companies’ serious commitment to health. Employees need to perceive that their senior management, supervisors, and coworkers have positive attitudes toward health since these factors have all been associated with improved employee health status. Management-related factors have been shown to contribute more to success than the content of the intervention.

2. Participatory planning - A Employee Health and Wellness Program should be undertaken in partnership with the workforce. Employees from all levels of staff should be actively engaged in the health and management aspects of the project as well as all on-going processes of any Employee Health and Wellness Program. Planning must also include processes for maintaining communication with all staff and building their commitment to the process. Starting Employee Health and Wellness Program steering committees to guide interventions during the planning and delivery of workplace health promotion programming improves worker awareness, participation, and satisfaction. Worker committees can identify perceived worker interests regarding educational programming, determine work site-specific characteristics that may affect the intervention or influence participation, and suggest the best methods for promotion and delivery of Employee Health and Wellness Programs and activities. Ways to maximize worker input and involvement might include interest surveys, focus groups, and peer counsellors.

3. Primary focus on workers’ needs - A Employee Health and Wellness Program should meet the needs of all workers, regardless of their current level of health and recognize the needs, preferences, and attitudes of different groups of participants. Program designers should consider the major health risks in the target population, the specific risks within the particular group of workers, and the company’s needs. In other words, interventions should be tailor-made to the characteristics and needs of the recipients. This means that varied programs must be provided at different levels. Participation and commitment can be increased if a group of staff members has the opportunity to address a specific modifiable risk factor of their choice.

4. Optimal use of on-site resources - Planning and implementation of Employee Health and Wellness Programs should optimize use of on-site personnel, physical resources, and organizational capabilities. For example, whenever possible, initiatives should use on-site health and safety, management, work organization, communication, HR, and other specialists. Well-qualified external leadership may be introduced when in-house expertise is lacking.

5. Integration - An overall workplace health policy should be developed. The policies governing employee health must align with the corporate mission, vision, and values, supporting both short- and long-term goals. These consistent policies must affirm the value of worker health and a commitment to engage workers in health enhancement. Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies should be integrated into a company’s regular management practices and eventually should be formally incorporated into the company’s corporate plan with adequate resources attached to them.

6. Recognition that a person’s health is determined by an interdependent set of factors - Any Employee Health and Wellness Program must address multiple components of an individual’s life:
• the workplace physical and psychosocial setting;
• their personal resources such as social support, sense of empowerment, etc.; and
• their lifestyle practices influencing health.

7. Tailoring to the special features of each workplace setting - Employee Health and Wellness Programs must be responsive to the unique needs of each workplace’s procedures, organization and culture. Integrating health behaviors and program participation into the existing corporate culture will normalize program participation.

8. Employee Health and Wellness Program Evaluation - Project management should flow through needs analysis, setting priorities, planning, implementation, continuous monitoring, and assessment. Evaluation must include a clearly-defined range of process measures and outcomes as well as mechanisms for monitoring the impact of non-intervention workplace changes such as plant closure, major workplace re-organization, and new technology on staff health.

9. Long-term commitment - To sustain the benefits of the Employee Health and Wellness Program, the worksite must continue the initiative over time, reinforcing risk-reduction behaviours and adapting the programs to ongoing personal, social, economic, and workplace changes.

Why have Employee Health and Wellness Program goals?

Employee Health and Wellness Program goals take your company’s priorities for employee health improvement and make them specific and measurable. Well-defined Employee Health and Wellness Program goals provide direction for selecting Strategies and a basis for which to measure progress.

Writing Employee Health and Wellness Program goals

Writing Employee Health and Wellness Program goals is not complicated or difficult. It does require some thought, about your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program vision for a culture of health and they should be:

Specific Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals
Measurable Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals
Attainable Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals
Realistic Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals
Timely Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals

Specific Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals: What is the specific outcome your company is looking for? “Reduce smoking among workers” is more specific than “Improve the health of workers.” You may wish to write some goals about specific outcomes (reducing smoking among workers) and other goals about specific progress (implementing a smoke-free campus policy or decreasing the price of fresh fruit in the cafeteria to 25 cents a piece).

Measurable Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals: Making your goals measurable provides a means of evaluating your progress and success. There is an adage: “what gets measured, gets done.” Goals which are measurable can be effective motivators for your company. “Provide more time for workers to be physically active” is much less measurable than “implement a daily 15-minute walking break into the schedule of all workers.” “Increase the number of workers who want to quit smoking” is less measurable than “increase enrollments in the stop-using tobacco program to 120 workers per year.”

Attainable Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals: Determine goals that challenge your company to change and that will demonstrate a real commitment to employee health. At the same time, set goals that are achievable. Goals that are set too far out of reach can be overwhelming and may become a barrier rather than a motivator.

Realistic Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals: Write goals that are do-able, given the skills, time, finances and overall strategy of the company. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Timely Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals: When do you hope to achieve the goal? Next week? Next year? Without a timeframe, the goal is still vague and is much less likely to galvanize resources and energy within your company.

“Reduce the percent of workers who use tobacco from 20 percent to 10 percent” is much less of a challenge than “By the end of 2010, reduce the percent of workers who use tobacco from 20 percent to 15 percent”.

Why it’s important and how to do it

The Employee Health and Wellness Program Vision

A Employee Health and Wellness Program vision statement is a concise statement that summarizes the purpose and goals of your company’s commitment to beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program. Taking the time to clarify and describe your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program vision can provide a focus and a consistent direction for your Strategies for years to come. The vision statement reminds leaders and workers of the link between worker health and the company’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Answer the following questions and you’ll have the components needed to build a simple and effective Employee Health and Wellness Program vision for your company’s culture of health:

• What do you want your Employee Health and Wellness Program to accomplish?
• How do you plan to accomplish it?
• How does this Employee Health and Wellness Program mission support or further the company’s mission?

A sample Employee Health and Wellness Program vision statement might be . . .

To have workers who perform at their best and who enable XYZ Corporation to be an industry leader in printing quality and customer service (company’s mission), XYZ Corporation is committed to providing opportunities for healthy behaviors during the workday (how) in order to encourage workers not to smoke, to be active, and to eat healthfully (what).

The Employee Health and Wellness Program Brand

In the same way that your company’s name and brand image provide visibility for your business, your Strategies toward beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program will benefit from being easily recognizable to workers:

• A consistently used Employee Health and Wellness Program brand on all communications conveys to workers that the commitment to a culture of health is here to stay.
• A Employee Health and Wellness Program brand institutionalizes the culture and makes it more likely to withstand changes in staff and budget.

Do what you can to engage workers in beginning the identity (brand) for your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program. Not only are they more likely to accept the name, it’s also a great way to announce to workers the company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program commitment. Here are two possible approaches to involving workers:

Option 1: Have a Employee Health and Wellness Program contest

1. Announce the Employee Health and Wellness Program contest guidelines and deadline.
2. Have the Health Promotion Committee review the ideas submitted, and choose a name.

If, for example, your company, Premier Building and Design, is in the commercial construction business, you might receive the following Employee Health and Wellness Program ideas from workers:

• Cornerstone: Feeling well is what it’s all about
• Premier Elements: Building healthier workers
• Custom Build: Building health builds wealth
• Building Health: Designing better worker health

After reviewing the entries, your Health Promotion Committee determines that it likes the name “Premier Elements” and the subtitle “Building health builds wealth”. Your committee awards the “name the Employee Health and Wellness Program contest” prize to the two workers, those who submitted the pieces of the name that represent the final product.

Premier Elements: Building health builds wealth

3. Select a Employee Health and Wellness Program logo to go with the name.

The Employee Health and Wellness Program logo is an important piece of the branding

• Review any ideas submitted for Employee Health and Wellness Program logos.
• If you’re fortunate to have a graphic design professional at your company, enlist her or his help with developing the Employee Health and Wellness Program logo!
• As an alternative, choose a piece of clip-art that fits with the Employee Health and Wellness Program name you’ve selected. For example, the company referenced above might look for a symbol that conveys building, health and wealth.

Option 2: Health Promotion Committee determines the name and brand

1. Have your Health Promotion Committee brainstorm Employee Health and Wellness Program names.
• To get ideas flowing, ask members to write down all health-related words and words associated with your company or industry.
• Try clustering words together as in the construction company example above.
2. Once your Health Promotion Committee has narrowed down the possibilities to about three ideas, have committee members vote to select a name for your culture of health.
3. Select a Employee Health and Wellness Program logo to go with the winning name.
4. Announce the company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program and the corresponding Employee Health and Wellness Program name. Explain that workers on the advisory committee chose the name.

Starting a Employee Health and Wellness Program need not be expensive, but will require the commitment of some financial resources. If possible, include the Employee Health and Wellness Program in your company’s annual business plan and budget as you do for other efforts important to your company’s success.

How much to budget for the Employee Health and Wellness Program?

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program that results in improved employee health. Organizations differ in how much money they need and how much they can make available for the Employee Health and Wellness Program. Consider the following common expenses in developing an adequate Employee Health and Wellness Program budget:

• Employee Health and Wellness Program staffing costs (either internal salaries or consultant fees)
• Employee Health and Wellness Program data collection costs (including health risk assessment costs, if relevant)
• Employee Health and Wellness Program incentives and rewards for healthy behaviors (such as discounts on premiums for non-smokers)
• Costs of Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies to be started (such as costs of covering tobacco quit medications or costs of subsidizing healthy foods in the cafeteria or vending machines)
• Employee Health and Wellness Program administrative and communications expenses

In times of tight finances, be prepared to justify your requested Employee Health and Wellness Program budget. Arm yourself with data on potential short- and long-term outcomes of the proposed Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies. Itemize the Employee Health and Wellness Program expenses of past initiatives and share projected expenses for initiatives planned for the upcoming year.

Sustaining Employee Health and Wellness Program Financing

A dedicated Employee Health and Wellness Program line item in your company’s budget makes it more likely to be regarded as a need, rather than as a “nice-to-have” amenity that could be cut when funds run low.

One of the best Strategies for ensuring continued financial support for the Employee Health and Wellness Program is frequent communication to upper management, including:

• How many workers have you reached through the Employee Health and Wellness Program? Has morale increased? Have health risks decreased, e.g., fewer workers using tobacco, more workers active?
• How well are you managing the Employee Health and Wellness Program resources you’ve been given? Where and how has your budget been spent? Keep track of the staff time required for each initiative and be able to present the numbers at any time.
• Anecdotal Employee Health and Wellness Program success stories from workers. Don’t underestimate the power of a good story to put a human face on your success.

Additional sources of Employee Health and Wellness Program Financing

If necessary, have the individuals responsible for beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program look for ways to supplement available internal funds. Are there grants or other financing available that can help support your Employee Health and Wellness Program ? What community Employee Health and Wellness Program resources could you use to meet some of your needs?

Strong and visible upper management support for the Employee Health and Wellness Program encourages health and is essential to securing necessary Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) and implementing recommended changes.

1. Identify a Employee Health and Wellness Program champion

In a small company, there may be a single leader who is the clear choice to champion the Employee Health and Wellness Program. In a larger company, look for an executive with the authority to sway others in the highest levels of the organization regarding the Employee Health and Wellness Program. The Employee Health and Wellness Program champion need not be the fittest member of upper management. Rather, look for a Employee Health and Wellness Program leader with the disposition to be a visible and vocal supporter of workplace policies that encourage healthy behaviors. Organizations with multiple sites can consider whether it would be useful to have an executive Employee Health and Wellness Program champion at each site.

2. Find existing Employee Health and Wellness Program allies

There may already be a number of individuals within your company who recognize the value of a Employee Health and Wellness Program. Think about who those individuals are in your company; consider areas such as occupational safety, union representatives, risk management, health officers, and human resources when looking for a Employee Health and Wellness Program ally. Secure their stated support for the Employee Health and Wellness Program. Employee Health and Wellness Program support could include contributions of staff time or expertise, financial resources, agreement to endorse/support policy and environmental changes, or agreement to participate in, and voice their support for, changes in the workplace that will help to build a culture of health.

3. Build a business case for the Employee Health and Wellness Program

There is a reason that more and more companies are finding a way to promote employee health via a Employee Health and Wellness Program and policies: A Employee Health and Wellness Program makes good business sense. workers with healthy behaviors, on average, are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism)1 and incur lower healthcare costs than workers with less healthy behaviors.2,3 As a result it would be foolish not to have a Employee Health and Wellness Program.

4. When developing a Employee Health and Wellness Program use what you know about leadership styles and the decision-making process within your company

Every company is different. Build upper management support for the Employee Health and Wellness Program in the way that makes the most sense for your company. Think about the following as you plan how to approach upper management for Employee Health and Wellness Program support:

• What are the current priorities and pressures facing executives? How could a Employee Health and Wellness Program and a healthier workforce support those priorities?
• How do your leaders prefer to receive data: written documents? verbal presentations?
• What kinds of Employee Health and Wellness Program information are likely to sway decisions? Do they want data and Employee Health and Wellness Program statistics specific to your company, or are state or national data sufficient? Are your leaders more influenced by internal factors or by what competitors are doing?
• Who would your leaders see as a reliable messenger for this Employee Health and Wellness Program information? Does someone from the risk management area carry more clout than someone from the human resources area?
• How do decisions really get made in your company? Informal committee meetings? Formal or informal meetings between executives? Plan accordingly and you improve the odds that the Employee Health and Wellness Program will become a reality.

5. Maintain Employee Health and Wellness Program support once you have it

Once you have appropriate Employee Health and Wellness Program support, ensure that you maintain it by regularly updating your leaders on employee health and progress toward beginning a culture that encourages health. Ask upper management how frequently they want to receive Employee Health and Wellness Program progress reports.

Source Information:
1 Bunn, JOEM, 2006, 48:10.
2 Foldes, Bland, An et al. Modifiable Health Risks and Short-Term Health Care Costs. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota internal research, submitted for publication.
3 Anderson, 2000, American Journal of Health Promotion, 15:1.

The workplace setting is a effective, but frequently overlooked, element in managing worker health. Here we will identify some of the best-practices in beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows workers to take charge of their own health. For example, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes a smoke-free workplace policy improves the likelihood that workers will try to quit smoking and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Employee Health and Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase workers’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for workers with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program and workplace setting that encourages worker health.

In an era of increasing healthcare costs and fervent competition, companies have a vested interest in the health of their workers. Research has found that, on average, workers with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than workers with unhealthy behaviors.

Employee Health and Wellness Program: Capturing Leadership Support

Employee Health and Wellness Program support from the highest level of upper management is essential to your success in beginning a culture of health within your workplace. Look for Employee Health and Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can sway other leaders. (It’s not important that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Health and Wellness 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 Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the workplace policies, physical setting, and social norms.

Secure Employee Health and Wellness Program Staff and Budget

Starting and maintaining a Employee Health and Wellness Program within your company needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your company is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Health and Wellness Program. There are a number of ways to find an individual with the necessary skills to guide and support your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program.

Starting facilities and Employee Health and Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing workers to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be expensive, but it does require adequate and sustained financing. If possible, include the creation of a workplace setting that supports the Employee Health and Wellness Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your company.

Worker Involvement in the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Pulling together a cross section of workers to advise your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of workers. In addition, these workers can serve as the front-line Employee Health and Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Develop a Employee Health and Wellness Program “Brand” and Vision

A Employee Health and Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in turning a Employee Health and Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Employee Health and Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (workers and leaders alike) the reasons for beginning a Employee Health and Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between worker health and your company’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program conveys to workers that the company’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Select a Employee Health and Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with workers. Then use that brand on all Employee Health and Wellness Program communications with workers about the policies, facilities and programs your company offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Evaluate Your Existing Employee Health and Wellness Program Situation

Exactly how your company establishes a Employee Health and Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your company and employee population.

Evaluate 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 workers, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data. Note: Information on workers’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Determine Employee Health and Wellness Program Goals and Priorities

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current workplace setting to determine your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities. From those Employee Health and Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employee Health and Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your company’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Select Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies

Focus your company’s Employee Health and Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on strategies that are most likely to produce results: a rise in healthy eating, a rise 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 Employee Health and Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Employee Health and Wellness Program strategies are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Employee Health and Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies

Once you’ve chosen your Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline. The “right” amount of time for implementing each Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your company. Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to start a Employee Health and Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Educate and Communicate About the Employee Health and Wellness Program

Ensure workers are aware of the Employee Health and Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided. Planning your Employee Health and Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with workers without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Employee Health and Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Employee Health and Wellness Program Strategies, think about how you’ll measure success. It’s much easier to gather information – or to start systems for collecting information — before you implement a Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy rather than as an afterthought. Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in worker morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in absenteeism or healthcare claims.

Report both your Employee Health and Wellness Program successes in building a healthy workplace environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides workers time for walking during the workday), and Employee Health and Wellness Program successes in getting workers to take charge of their health (a rise in the number of workers who contacted the stop-smoking program, or a rise in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).