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).
