The workplace environment is a effective, but often overlooked, component in managing worker health. Here we will identify some of the best-practices in beginning a Worksite Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows workers to take charge of their own health. For example, a Worksite Wellness Program that includes a smoke-free workplace policy improves the likelihood that workers will try to quit tobacco use and will quit smoking successfully. Similarly, a Worksite Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps raise 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 Worksite Wellness Program and workplace environment that encourages worker health.
In an era of ever-increasing healthcare costs and intense competition, employers have a vested interest in the health of their workers. Research has found that, on average, workers with healthy behaviors (such as not smoking or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less often, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than workers with unhealthy behaviors.
Worksite Wellness Program: Capturing Upper Management Support
Worksite Wellness Program support from the highest level of leadership is vital to your success in beginning a culture of health within your workplace. Look for Worksite Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not necessary that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Worksite 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 Worksite Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the workplace policies, physical environment, and social norms.
Obtain Worksite Wellness Program Staff and Financing
Starting and maintaining a Worksite Wellness Program within your organization needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your organization is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Worksite Wellness Program. There are a number of ways to find an individual with the required skills to guide and support your organization’s Worksite Wellness Program.
Beginning facilities and Worksite Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing workers to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be costly, but it does require adequate and sustained funding. If possible, include the creation of a workplace environment that supports the Worksite Wellness Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your organization.
Staff Member Involvement in the Worksite Wellness Program
Setting up a representative group of staff members to advise your organization’s Worksite Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of staff members. In addition, these workers can serve as the front-line Worksite Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.
Create a Worksite Wellness Program Vision and “Brand”
A Worksite Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in moving a Worksite Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Worksite Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (workers and leaders alike) the reasons for beginning a Worksite Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between worker health and your organization’s ability to achieve its overall mission.
Branding your organization’s Worksite Wellness Program sends a message to workers that the organization’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Worksite Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with workers. Then use that brand on all Worksite Wellness Program communications with workers about the policies, facilities and programs your organization offers to promote healthy behaviors.
Evaluate Your Current Worksite Wellness Program Situation
Exactly how your organization creates a Worksite Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your organization 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 staff members’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.
Establish Worksite Wellness Program Priorities and Goals
Use what you’ve learned about employee health and about your current workplace environment to determine your organization’s Worksite Wellness Program priorities. From those Worksite Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Worksite Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your organization’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.
Choose Worksite Wellness Program Procedures
Focus your organization’s Worksite Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on procedures 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 Worksite Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Worksite Wellness Program procedures are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.
The formula for Worksite Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.
Implement Worksite Wellness Program Procedures
Once you’ve chosen your Worksite Wellness Program Procedures, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline. The “right” amount of time for implementing each Worksite Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your organization. Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Worksite Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.
Educate and Communicate About the Worksite Wellness Program
Ensure workers are aware of the Worksite Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided. Planning your Worksite Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with workers without overwhelming them at any one time.
Monitor and Report Your Worksite Wellness Program Results
At the same time that you plan your Worksite Wellness Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success. It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you implement a Worksite 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 Worksite 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 Worksite Wellness Program successes in getting staff members 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).
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