Incentivize: Choose incentives carefully focusing on those that promote a healthy lifestyle for employees and are accessible to anyone who completes the requirements of the program. Be sure to choose incentives that fit your organization’s culture.
Use Biometric Screenings as a Snapshot: Biometric screenings can be helpful for basic prevention as most measure employees' blood sugar, BMI, cholesterol and blood pressure. The screenings are useful for employees to evaluate their own health and can be collected in the aggregate as a tool to measure overall workforce health and improvements year over year.
Offer More Than Biometric Screenings: Biometric screenings are an effective tool that can help guide the development of the programs that will be most useful to your employees. Use the data to develop initiatives that target the health issues that face your workforce. While you may think wellness challenges would be fun to implement, if your employees are suffering from high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels, it may be beneficial to add programs on nutrition, healthy cooking and stress relief practices.
Don’t Use Scare Tactics: Success stories are more empowering and effective than deadlines or loss of privileges. Employer-based wellness programs work when employees and management feel vested in the outcome of their choices.
Consult Experts: A wellness vendor can help you develop a customized program that targets the health needs of your employees. If direct expert consultation is not feasible, pull health information from credible sources and stay up to date on the science of wellness. Fads and trends are just that and are not the type of wellness foundation needed for employees to build healthy lifestyles.
Communicate: The key to success in business as well as employee wellness is good internal communication. Employees need to know how to get involved and how to get questions and concerns answered. Good communication can get employees excited about the health and wellness plans offered. Develop a multi-faceted communications approach that will reach all employees.
Choose the Right Provider: There are many wellness providers that can make a program a success. Find the right fit for your corporate culture by asking questions and getting references.
Get Employee Feedback: An effective program involves employees and addresses their needs and interests while also placing value on their opinions. Feedback is a proactive way to ensure your health program is delivering what your workforce wants and needs.
Encourage Participation: Employees will participate in a wellness program that is proven to benefit them. Employers should refrain from forcing employees to engage in a program. Voluntary participation often leads to healthy results and an overall content workforce.
Wellness Should Be Stress-free: If employees feel stressed about meeting strict requirements or are uncertain about expectations, a wellness plan defeats its own purpose. Additionally, no health and wellness program is perfect. It needs to be tweaked, evaluated and reviewed on an ongoing basis to achieve the best results.
Wellness Workdays uses all of the best practices outlined above and can help you develop a program that engages employees and gets results. Contact us for more information.
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