How To Launch A Corporate Wellness Program That Works
Employee wellness is something that matters to both employees and employers. A healthy employee is happier and more productive, which reflects well on the business and keeps everyone satisfied. But if you don’t have a formal corporate wellness program, you probably aren’t focusing enough on the health of your employees.
The Business-Side Benefits of Employee Wellness
Health and wellness is a very personal thing, clearly benefiting the individual more than anyone or anything else. But the advantages of managing a workforce full of healthy employees extend far beyond the employee-side benefits. Businesses stand a lot to gain from putting employee wellness first. Let’s check out some of the specific benefits:
* Happiness. According to a 2012 study by AFLAC, employees who participate in workplace wellness programs are more satisfied with their jobs. This is tied to the fact that wellness programs show employees that the company cares for them. They also makes people physically feel better.
* Enhanced productivity. It’s no surprise that physical activity and good nutrition positively affect the brain. The long-term benefits are more energy, better focus, and extra motivation. Those are valuable benefits, regardless of the industry or role.
* Stronger community. Employee wellness programs are great for companies that are simultaneously trying to strengthen their culture and bring employees closer together. With group activities, challenges, and common “non-work” goals, organizations have discovered that wellness programs play a major role in forging stronger, longer lasting communities.
* Cost savings. Harvard Business Review reports that, since 1995, the percentage of Johnson & Johnson employees who smoke has dropped by two-thirds. Furthermore, the number of people with high blood pressure and physical inactivity has been cut in half. Why does this matter? It’s tied to the company’s investment in employee wellness, which has saved J&J $250 million on healthcare expenses over the past decade. In fact, the return has been $2.71 for every dollar spent.
These are just a few of the business-side benefits of an investment in employee wellness, but they show the impressive return a formal health and wellness program can bring to the sponsoring organization.
Three Keys to a Successful Program Launch
Simply developing and launching a corporate wellness program isn’t enough. There’s a big difference between an average program and one that’s highly effective. According to the same Harvard Business Review report, organizations with programs that are deemed as having “low effectiveness” experience volunteer attrition rates of 15 percent, while companies with “highly-effective” programs see, on average, just 9 percent voluntary attrition. Specifically, software company SAS Institute has seen voluntary turnover drop from 19 percent in 2005 to just 4 percent more recently.
In other words, if you’re going to invest time, energy, and resources into developing and launching a corporate wellness program that’s aimed at producing the aforementioned benefits, you have to focus on a successful launch and execution.
1. Lead From the Top
The worst mistake a company can make is launching a wellness program when there’s dissention in the upper levels of management. Sadly, this is quite common. In many organizations, you’ll discover that HR supports a wellness program, while managers and executives reluctantly go along with it. But there’s no place for reluctance from leaders.
If the CEO is a slob who eats cheeseburgers for lunch every day and spends his weekend drinking beer and watching football, employees won’t buy into the program. They’ll assume that the CEO is merely implementing it for the return he’ll see on his investment.
On the other hand, if the CEO runs three miles at lunch, eats healthy, and encourages employees to join his basketball league on the weekends, suddenly health and wellness are viewed as genuine organizational priorities.
So, before launching a program, make sure there’s buy-in from the top. And more important than buy-in, ensure there’s leadership by example. This is how you get people excited about participation.
2. Focus on the Right Tasks
A lot of strategic planning must go into developing a corporate wellness program that works. This means focusing on important areas that deliver the highest employee- and business-side benefits.
According to Gary Lindsay of Partnership for Prevention, there are three major components of a successful corporate wellness program: tobacco, cancer screening, and fitness/nutrition.
“The most cost saving service that is out there is really offering comprehensive tobacco benefit,” Lindsay says. “That should really be one of the first things an employer should do.”
Cancer screening can be done on-site, or may just look like your company giving paid time off for screening appointments and other related services. As for health and nutrition, which will likely take up the bulk of engagement from employees, there are plenty of ways to encourage participation. For example, you could:
* Hire a personal trainer to teach onsite classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.
* Give employees an extra 20 minutes at lunch if they participate in some sort of physical activity.
* Offer cheap and healthy dietary options in vending machines and in the break room.
* Create group weight loss challenges and other competitions.
It’s important that you offer some variety so employees are able to choose something that fits their needs, preferences, and schedules. By offering multiple opportunities to engage in healthy behavior, you’ll see superior results.
3. Make the Program a Key Focus
If you’re going to invest in a corporate wellness program, you obviously need to get something out of it. One mistake you’ll often see is that organizations spend a lot of time developing a program and then do a poor job of building excitement and engagement.
Here are some strategies you can implement to ensure this doesn’t happen:
* Apply marketing principles. In the beginning stages, you need to treat your program like you would treat a product you’re selling. Marketing will go a long way towards increasing visibility and driving participation. Make sure you’re developing and circulating materials in the workplace. Putting up flyers in the break room is one practical suggestion, as is mentioning new developments in a weekly internal email newsletter.
* Focus on benefits over features. After spending time developing a corporate wellness program, it’s easy to get caught up in the various elements of the program itself – such as health screenings, workout plans, etc. – but be careful not to only focus on the features. In order to encourage buy-in, you need to focus on the benefits. What do employees have to gain from participating?
Develop an incentive plan. Some employees will participate because they’re interested in being healthy, while others will need a little more coaxing. For this latter group, a targeted incentive plan is a great idea.
If the launch goes well, then you can feel better about the long-term sustainability of the program.
Getting Out of the Gates
There’s a lot of talk about corporate wellness programs these days, but they require hard work and strategic planning from the corporate side. If you want to enjoy the sort of return that companies like J&J receive, you’ll need to lead from the top, focus on the right tasks, and prioritize the program within the company.
Do those three things and you’ll be well on your way to success.
source:https://www.forbes.com