Posts from — October 2008

Finding an individual to guide your corporation in establishing a Wellness Program

Without a qualified Wellness Program coordinator to guide and manage your corporation’s creation of a culture of health, efforts can be scattered and momentum can stall. While it’s essential that the creation of a culture of health be someone’s priority, not all corporations need a full-time coordinator.  There are a number of ways to gain the time of a qualified coordinator.

Be careful not to confuse Wellness Program skills with fitness skills. You are not looking for a personal trainer or a nutritionist to run your Corporate Health Promotion Program. The following are good indications that an individual may be qualified to be a Wellness Program coordinator:

• knowledge of population health, community health and worksite Corporate Health Promotion Programs
• competent working with and understanding aggregate data, preferably Wellness Program data
• competent managing projects, including developing timelines and facilitating meetings
• competent in strategic planning, including defining goals and related objectives
• ability to understand, and use the findings of, journal articles on effective Wellness Program Procedures.

What will a Wellness Program coordinator do?

The Wellness Program coordinator is accountable for guiding a process that creates workplace facilities, policies and practices that promote health. The individual may do some of all of the following for your Corporate Health Promotion Program:

• act as a liaison between upper management and the Wellness Program employee advisory workgroup
• interpret health-related data on your Wellness Program
• create and manage work plans and budgets for implementation of selected Wellness Program Procedures
• facilitate Wellness Committee meetings
• guide your corporation in establishing measurable goals for the Wellness Program
• recommend effective Wellness Program Procedures, using the evidence in the health behavior literature and national and/or recommended best practices
• document and report short-term and long-term progress on Wellness Program Procedures and goals.

Where can we find a qualified Wellness Program coordinator?

Consider the following when looking for a Wellness Program coordinator:

• Existing employees: Are there individuals on employees who have the background, or are interested in gaining the skills, to serve as a Wellness Program coordinator? Is it possible to dedicate a portion of someone’s time (e.g., .5 FTE) to the position of coordinating your corporation’s Wellness Program Procedures? If possible, budget enough to cover not only salary but also continued learning, journal subscriptions and membership fees for this Wellness Program position.
• New employees - Can you hire an individual to be your corporation’s Wellness Program coordinator? Would it need to be a full-time position, or would part-time be sufficient?
• Wellness Program Consultation - Various corporations (e.g., health plans, benefit consultants and public health departments) provide Wellness Program consultation on building a culture of health within a workplace.

An outside Wellness Program consultant can advise an internal Wellness Program coordinator and your Wellness Committee on establishing priorities and determining Procedures. Or, you can contract with a Wellness Program consultant to be your coordinator. If you go with the latter approach, you’ll want to contract with the individual for sufficient hours to carry out all of the responsibilities associated with coordinating an effective strategy.

Strong and visible upper management support for the Wellness Program encourages health and is essential to securing necessary Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) and implementing recommended changes.

1. Identify a Wellness Program champion

In a small corporation, there may be a single leader who is the clear choice to champion the Corporate Health Promotion Program. In a larger corporation, look for an executive with the authority to influence others in the highest levels of the organization regarding the Corporate Health Promotion Program. The Wellness Program champion need not be the fittest member of upper management. Rather, look for a Wellness Program leader with the disposition to be a visible and vocal supporter of workplace policies that encourage healthy behaviors. Organizations with multiple sites can consider whether it would be useful to have an executive Wellness Program champion at each site.

2. Find existing Wellness Program allies

There may already be a number of individuals within your corporation who recognize the value of a Corporate Health Promotion Program. Think about who those individuals are in your corporation; consider areas such as occupational safety, union representatives, risk management, health officers, and human resources when looking for a Wellness Program ally. Obtain their stated support for the Corporate Health Promotion Program. Wellness Program support could include contributions of staff time or expertise, financial resources, agreement to endorse/support policy and environmental changes, or agreement to participate in, and voice their support for, changes in the workplace that will help to build a culture of health.

3. Build a business case for the Wellness Program

There is a reason that more and more corporations are finding a way to promote employee health via a Wellness Program and policies: A Wellness Program makes good business sense. employees with healthy behaviors, on average, are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism)1 and incur lower health care costs than employees with less healthy behaviors.2,3  As a result it would be foolish not to have a Corporate Health Promotion Program.

4. When developing a Wellness Program use what you know about leadership styles and the decision-making process within your corporation

Every corporation is different. Build upper management support for the Wellness Program in the way that makes the most sense for your corporation. Think about the following as you plan how to approach upper management for Wellness Program support:

• What are the current priorities and pressures facing executives? How could a Wellness Program and a healthier workforce support those priorities?
• How do the leaders rather receive data: written documents? verbal presentations?
• What types of Wellness Program information are likely to influence decisions? Do they want data and Wellness Program statistics specific to your corporation, or are state or national data sufficient? Are the leaders more influenced by internal factors or by what competitors are doing?
• Who would the leaders see as a reliable messenger for this Wellness Program information? Does someone from the risk management area carry more clout than someone from the human resources area?
• How do decisions get made in your corporation? Informal committee meetings? Formal or informal meetings between executives? Plan accordingly and you increase the odds that the Wellness Program will become a reality.

5. Maintain Wellness Program support once you have it

Once you have appropriate Wellness Program support, ensure that you maintain it by regularly updating the leaders on employee health and progress toward establishing a culture that encourages health. Ask upper management how often they want to receive Wellness Program progress reports.

Source Information:
1 Bunn, JOEM, 2006, 48:10.
2 Foldes, Bland, An et al. Modifiable Health Risks and Short-Term Health Care Costs. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota internal research, submitted for publication.
3 Anderson, 2000, American Journal of Health Promotion, 15:1.

The workplace environment is a effective, but often overlooked, element in managing employee health.  Here we will identify some of the best-practices in establishing a Wellness Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows employees to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Wellness Program that includes a tobacco-free workplace policy improves the likelihood that employees will try to quit smoking and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Wellness Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase employees’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for employees with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in establishing a Wellness Program and workplace environment that encourages employee health.

In an era of ever-increasing health care costs and fervent competition, corporations have a vested interest in the health of their employees.  Research studies have found that, on average, employees with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower health care expenses, are absent from work less often, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than employees with unhealthy behaviors.

Corporate Health Promotion Program: Obtaining Leadership Support

Wellness Program support from the highest level of upper management is essential to your success in establishing a culture of health within your workplace. Look for Wellness Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not important that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Corporate Health Promotion 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 Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the workplace policies, physical environment, and social norms.

Obtain Wellness Program Staff and Financing

The creation and maintenance of a Wellness Program within your corporation needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your corporation is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Corporate Health Promotion Program.  There are a number of ways to find an individual with the necessary skills to guide and support your corporation’s Corporate Health Promotion Program.

Creating facilities and Wellness Program policies, such as those allowing employees to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be expensive, but it does require adequate and sustained financing.  If possible, include the creation of a workplace environment that supports the Wellness Program as a permanent component of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your corporation.

Worker Involvement in the Wellness Program

Pulling together a representative group of employees to advise your corporation’s Wellness Program ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and obstacles of all groups of employees.   In addition, these employees can serve as the front-line Wellness Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Develop a Wellness Program “Brand” and Vision

A Wellness Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in turning a Wellness Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Wellness Program vision statement summarizes for all (employees and leaders alike) the reasons for establishing a Corporate Health Promotion Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between employee health and your corporation’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your corporation’s Wellness Program conveys to employees that the corporation’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Wellness Program name and logo that resonate with employees. Then use that brand on all Wellness Program communications with employees about the policies, facilities and programs your corporation offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Evaluate Your Current Wellness Program Situation

Exactly how your corporation creates a Wellness Program that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your corporation 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 employees, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data.  Note: Information on employees’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Establish Wellness Program Priorities and Goals

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current workplace environment to determine your corporation’s Wellness Program priorities. From those Wellness Program priorities, define clear and measurable Wellness Program goals for improving employee health and your corporation’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Choose Wellness Program Procedures

Focus your corporation’s Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on procedures that are most likely to produce results:  an increase in healthy eating, an increase 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 Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Wellness Program procedures are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Wellness Program Procedures

Once you’ve chosen your Wellness Program Procedures, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your corporation.  Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to establish a Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Educate and Communicate About the Wellness Program

Ensure employees are aware of the Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with employees without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Wellness Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to establish systems for collecting information — before you implement a Wellness Program strategy rather than as an afterthought.   Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in employee morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in rates of absenteeism or health care claims.

Report both your Wellness Program successes in building a healthy workplace environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides employees time for walking during the workday), and Wellness Program successes in getting employees to take charge of their health (an increase in the number of employees who contacted the stop-smoking program, or an increase in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).