Wellness Program Blog

Establishing an active Company Wellness Committee supports opportunities for both management and employee participation in the program.  The Wellness Committee ought to be a group of workers and managers who formally meet to plan activities to encourage healthier employee lifestyles.

Typical Functions of a Company Wellness  Committee:

• Analyzing needs & interests
• Brainstorming program ideas
• Planning activities
• Developing communication plans
• Promoting programs to co-workers
• Serving as champions of the Company Wellness Programs
• Assisting with assessment

Your Company Wellness  Committee ought to be representative of all echelons of the company.  Consider all sections of the workforce – multiple sites, shift workers, diversity (race, gender, ethnicity), and departments.   It’s also valuable to consider who will chair or co-chair the Company Wellness  Committee and whether or not there are the finances to support a Company Wellness  manager or occupational health professional, even on a part-time or contractual basis.  Click here for more information on the advantages of a health professional.

Depending on your company size and resources, if you already have a company Safety Committee you might want to consider making it the Safety & Company Wellness  Committee.  You can request volunteers or invite workers to take part.

The number of Company Wellness Committee members is dependent upon the size of your company; however, you need a sufficient number of members to get the work done and yet not too many to keep it manageable, usually at least 4 members and maximum of 12 to 15 members.  It’s valuable to include skeptics of wellness as well and not just those workers already living healthy lifestyles.

Depending on your workplace, consider representatives from the following areas:

• Employee representatives from a cross section of different departments,
• Upper Management
• Health and safety professional(s),
• Human resources professional(s),
• Employee benefits representative or someone from finance,
• Your Employee Assistance Program(EAP) provider (if applicable), Click here for more information on EAPs
• Occupational health employee (if applicable).

Establish a strong Company Wellness  Committee!  The Company Wellness  Committee ought to meet often with a planned agenda and action items.  Successful Wellness Committees have a shared mission, vision and objectives.  Participants must believe that their participation is worthwhile and appreciated, that their work is valuable, benefits the organization and co-workers, and they are recognized for their contributions. Refer to the NC Workplace Programs section for examples of what other employers have implemented.

As with any program, the two most important elements for the effectiveness of your wellness program are management support & employee participation.  Upper Management sets the vision and arranges the resources from which action plans flow.  Genuine support from senior personnel also lends credibility to the wellness initiative.  It is  that management be visible supporters and role models for your Company Wellness .

workers need to be involved on several echelons so that they feel ownership of the wellness program.  Workers are the program stakeholders!  All workers ought to have an opportunity to offer input and feedback through needs & interest surveys and program assessment tools.  The information gathered ought to be used to plan programs that target those needs and interests to ensure participation, buy-in, and support.

There are several methods to identify employee needs and interests such as:

• Conducting Employee Focus Groups
• Examining Wellness Interests During Department gatherings
• Distributing and Summarizing a Needs & Interest Survey
• (Including a Chance to Give Suggestions on Each Evaluation Tool

Any one or combination of several techniques will be sure that the wellness program meets what workers want.

Step 3 supports additional information on determining wellness program needs.  But first, starting a Company Wellness Committee can help you involve management & workers, determine need, and plan your wellness program.

A key to a efficacious Company Wellness  requires management commitment and employee participation.

Company Wellness Step 2: Create a Company Wellness  Committee

An active Company Wellness  Committee sees to employee participation, supports buy-in, management support, and maintains a crew that is ready to take action to integrate wellness programs.

Company Wellness  Step 3: Gather Data to Ascertain Key Needs and Expectations

The next essential step is to base the Company Wellness  on the needs and interests of your company and its workers.

Company Wellness  Step 4: Establish Goals and Objectives

Goals and objectives are the road maps to guide you where your program needs to go.   These are the foundation for planning and evaluating activities to see to it that your wellness program is going to meet your unique needs.

Company Wellness  Step 5: Establish a Detailed Action Plan

There is no such thing as too much planning!  The best of intentions can get lost, overstepped, or forgotten in the absence ofadequate planning, and then it would be all for naught.

Company Wellness  Step 6: Select and Begin a Plan

Armed with the needs assessment results, a Company Wellness  Committee, objectives it’s now time to implement your plan!

Company Wellness  Step 7: Oversee and Assess Your Company Wellness

Evaluation is an important step to keep a program focused, as well as to guarantee that the program is reaching its objectives or achieving favorable results.

In Conclusion

These Seven Steps outline considerations for a all-inclusive approach to designing and launching an effective wellness program.  Would you be able to implement components of wellness activities without following these steps?  Certainly, but you may not have the sustainability or ability to obtain desired outcomes.  Following the Seven Steps need not be difficult or burdensome.  A very simple approach can achieve a efficacious wellness program!

Therefore, to ensure a efficacious wellness program refer to the key components as you plan your program or better your current program:

• Upper Management Support & Employee Participation
• Active Company Wellness  Committee
• Company Wellness  is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Company Wellness  Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Company Wellness  Action Plan Based on Resources & Budget
• Company Wellness  Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Evaluation of Company Wellness  Outcomes

The program design options hinge upon the objectives and desired outcomes of your program.  If your objective is to help workers change behavior, decrease risk factors, or save medical care dollars then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be crucial to support that design.

There are different wellness program design levels depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has pros and cons.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining similar results, and therefore should not be confused.  By way of example, scheduling activities such as an employee health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having pamphlets available do not usually result in behavior modification, but may increase awareness on a topic.  If the objective is behavior modification then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Business Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a company makes health information available and accessible to workers.  This type of program often includes pamphlets on a variety of topics, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors offering information and offering health screenings to workers.

Awareness programs are inexpensive and do not require extensive employee or company time commitments.  However, these programs do not usually result in behavior modification.  Growing awareness isn’t usually enough to generate lifestyle changes for most American citizens, unless used to innervate workers to register for a program being provided at the company or community on the topic.  An example of this would be offering information on the harmful effects of smoking and inviting workers who use tobacco to register for a smoking cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs often offer more information on a topic and usually also provide time for Q & A, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the company a modest amount more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require much time for planning or attending a session.  Again, increasing awareness and offering information may not yield the desired behavior modification unless ongoing support or incentives/rewards are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or classes to offer health and wellness education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require additional company resources, cost more, and also require additional employee commitment, time and effort.  The results are often the desired positive lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.

Examples are smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing physical activity program.

Environmental and Business Support:  Environmental support is often considered the highest and most valuable level to include when designing your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy lifestyles.  These  design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a tobacco-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Establishing worksite fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy vending machines choices,
• Offering healthy food choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Establishing flex-time policies.

Other examples include subsidizing healthy vending machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing fitness center or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or offering insurance incentives/rewards for healthy lifestyles.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all of these options.  The more comprehensive the approach, the more efficacious the results will be.  By way of example, a company can have smoking cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can implement an worksite smoking cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support workers to go to a community program; and/or on an environmental support level can establish a tobacco-free workplace and grounds, offer decreased health care insurance for non-smokers, or offer pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Company Wellness : Components for Success

There are several important elements that must be considered to see to the effectiveness of your Company Wellness  or Company Wellness .  These include:

• Upper Management Support & Employee Participation
• Active Company Wellness  Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Evaluation of Outcomes and Program

Major advantages of healthy workers include:

• Decreased Health Care costs
• Reduced Injuries
• Reduced Rates of Absenteeism
• Increased Morale and Loyalty
• Increased Productivity
• Reduced Use of Health Care Benefits
• Reduced Workers’ Comp/Disability
• Positive Image in Community
• Reduced Turnover
• Better recruitment for able workers

What is NOT Having a Company Wellness Costing Your Business?

Let us look at the health risk factors that are contributing to chronic diseases for adults:

• 59% of American citizens are overweight or obese
• Greater than 60% of American adults do not get regular exercise
• Greater than 75% of American adults do not consume the minimum recommendations for fruits and vegetables
• Cardiovascular disease is the leading common cause of death and the primary cause of death in smokers
• 26% of workers reported they were often or very often burned out or stressed by their occupation

Health Care costs are Rising:  Health Care costs are at a record level of $1.7 trillion with no signs of holding steady, let alone going down.  The average cost of yearly medical care spending is over $5,000 per person and with dependents almost $10,000.  Recent data shows that medical care related costs now cost North Carolina employers thousands of dollars per employee, each year.

Most Illnesses Can Be Avoided:  Although it sounds unrealistic, experts suggest that avoidable illness makes up 60% – 70% of the entire burden of illness in the U.S..   In North Carolina, it is estimated that more than 53% of all deaths are avoidable, and that 2/3 of all avoidable deaths are due to tobacco use, physical inactivity, and poor diet.

Stress Levels are On the Rise:  As company resources dwindle and employers adopt less-costly work practices, the effects of absenteeism and lost productivity have an increased impact.  In a current national poll, 78% of the population described their jobs as stressful, and most felt that stress levels have risen over The last decade.  Moreover, high levels of company stress can negatively affect a company by growing injuries, absenteeism, and medical costs while decreasing productivity.  Simple solutions such as stress management education, flexible work schedules, quality social interaction, and increased participation in company decision-making can better stress levels in the workplace.

What is the Initial Cost and Time Investment for a Company Wellness ?

The expenditure is dependent upon the type of Company Wellness  implemented.  There are several options to encourage employee health with pros and cons of each.  The program design is dependent upon the objectives of the wellness program, the company resources, and the community resources available.

Improving dietary practices, increasing physical exercise levels, managing stress or approaching work life balance problems, and reducing/eliminating tobacco use, are primary strategies for preventing many of the most common avoidable chronic diseases. The possibilities of how your company deals with these problems are endless and can range from increasing employee awareness, which may include purchasing a few pamphlets on a variety of topics, and calculating walking distances around your facility, to starting company support such as funding a full-time occupational health professional or building an worksite fitness center.

When well-planned and based on your objectives, any of these programs can help you succeed.  Refer below to Company Wellness Design Options for additional ideas.

A Company Wellness is a multi-faceted program to assist and support workers in starting healthier lifestyles.  This can include growing employee awareness on health topics, scheduling behavior modification programs, and/or starting company policies that support health-related objectives.  Programs and policies that encourage increased physical exercise, tobacco use prevention and cessation, and healthy food selections are a few examples.

Dimensions of Wellness

Wellness is much more than fitness alone.  In addition to physical fitness, the scope of ideal health include:

• Spiritual Wellness,
• Emotional Wellness,
• Social Wellness,
• Intellectual Wellness

These ranges are often illustrated as a “life wheel” with examples of health dimensions that include fitness, nutrition, purpose in life, monetary health, social wellness & support systems, stress management, mind-body health, career planning and continued learning.   The key behind personal health is keeping the “life wheel” in balance.  A across the board workplace wellness program addresses most, if not all, of these ranges.

Why Company Wellness Programs?

workers invest much time on the job, and the bottom line is that our traditional work-week is growing.  In fact, the typical American now labors about 47 hours every week.  In addition, items such as modems, laptops, cell phones, voice and email have confused the work-life boundary.  These realities decrease the amount of time that the average person is able to devote to health and wellness pursuits, and yet workers are predicted to be extremely efficient when at work.

A current study by the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses saw that workplace wellness or Company Wellness Programs are efficacious in helping workers to make positive health changes due to several factors such as convenience, environmental support, and co-worker or social acceptance.

What’s the Connection between Wellness and the Workplace?

Programs and policies that encourage healthy lifestyles can make a tremendous difference on employee wellness AND impact the company’s bottom line.  Studies show that for each dollar invested by employers in Company Wellness Programs/wellness programs, there were savings ranging from $1.49 to $4.91 with a average savings of $3.14*.  In company terms, that’s more than a 3:1 minimum ROI – a number that is tough to overlook, and a best practice that ought to draw serious consideration from employers.  In fact, a Company Wellness literature review posted in Health Promotion Practitioner Journal saw:

• 19 different studies saw a 28.3% decrease in sick leave
• 16 different studies determined a 5.6:1 ROI
• 23 showed a 26.1% decline in medical costs
• 4 saw a 30% decline in direct medical and workers’ compensation claims

There is little doubt that a all-inclusive wellness program designed to meet an enterprise’s specific needs can save money by reducing absenteeism, lowering medical care costs, lowering employee turnover, and increasing productivity.

• The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2003