Wellness Articles

Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan review (from Key #19)
• A Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan is a roadmap for success.
• Your Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan should convincingly demonstrate that your Employee Health and Wellness Program will help the organization to achieve its goals.

More smart Employee Health and Wellness Program business planning strategies

Planning the Employee Health and Wellness Program

• Find out how your organization plans so that your planning process will be in sync with what already happens in the organization.
• Involve other individuals. A planning team brings their combined experience and perspective to the process. Including potential partners as you plan will make it easier to get their buy-in later.

Thinking of the big picture

• Look at the barriers and challenges that might be encountered during Employee Health and Wellness Program implementation. Develop strategies ahead of time to overcome these potential problems.
• Do a SWOT analysis and examine Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

This analysis will help you identify potential problem areas or resource shortfalls as well as opportunities for growth or increased partnerships with other installation personnel.

The WORST business planning strategy: sitting in your office; working by yourself.

The best Employee Health and Wellness Program business planning strategies
• Get out of your office; get out of the business. The more individuals you involve in the Employee Health and Wellness Program planning process, the better. Always look for ways to expand your network.
• Keep your budget individuals informed. Get to know their philosophy of financial management.
• Be able to articulate the impact if your budget is not fully funded.
o Stay away from basing your impact-if-not-funded argument solely on: “We have to.”
o Instead, describe the impact-if-not-funded with phrases like: injuries to workers, increased compensation costs, increased medical care costs for patients, lost work time, loss of licenses/accreditations, loss of workload to the Tricare network.
• Always have purchase requests ready to be submitted. There is frequently a short window of time to process these requests. Having the information gathered ahead of time will make it easy to submit the information right away.

A well thought-out Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan is essential in these times of shrinking budgets and resources. A good business plan will help you gain leadership support and help you get and keep resources needed to implement the Employee Health and Wellness Program.

A business plan is a roadmap for success. Use the guidelines below to develop a realistic business plan and budget for your Employee Health and Wellness Programs.

What is a business plan?
• A plan for success
• A document that convincingly demonstrates that your Employee Health and Wellness Program will help the organization to achieve its goals.

Questions to ask when developing a Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan
• Why do you need to do the Employee Health and Wellness Program?
• What are you going to do?
• Where are you going to do it?
• Who is the target audience?
• How are you going to do it?
• Who is going to implement the Employee Health and Wellness Program?
• How much will the Employee Health and Wellness Program cost Senior Management?
• What is Senior Management going to get out of the Employee Health and Wellness Program? Why should Senior Management invest in the Employee Health and Wellness Program?

Employee Health and Wellness Program business Plan Components
• Title and duration of the Employee Health and Wellness Program
• Points of contact
• Background information (description of need; bibliography/literature review; how the Employee Health and Wellness Program will help achieve the organization’s goals)
• Employee Health and Wellness Program description
• Goals and objectives
• Implementation site
• Target population
• Work plan
• Partnerships and collaborations
• Timelines and milestones
• Budget and resource requirements (dollars and individuals)

Gaining the support of leadership
• Clearly link the Employee Health and Wellness Program goals and objectives to the organization’s strategic plan.
• Focus on the desired outcomes.
• Use the right language for the right audience. For example, Senior Management is interested in decreased clinic visits, increased provider productivity, management of the health of the population. However, Senior Management is interested in increased readiness, decreased lost duty/training time, and decreased disability and FECA claims.
A well thought-out Employee Health and Wellness Program business plan will help you gain leadership support, help you get and keep resources needed to implement the Employee Health and Wellness Program, and keep the Employee Health and Wellness Program on track towards meaningful outcomes.