Bottom Line Up Front Corporate Health Promotion Programs

Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Wellness Program will help you get and sustain Senior Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Corporate Health Promotion Program.

The bottom line in Corporate Health Promotion Programs answer two primary questions:

• How will member health be enhanced?
• What’s in it for Senior Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Wellness Program impacts readiness.
• Think like Senior Management: what Wellness Program outcomes will be important from a Senior Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask members how they think a particular Wellness Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Corporate Health Promotion Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Wellness Program first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or beginning any part of the Corporate Health Promotion Program, be able to answer the questions: how will member health be enhanced? What’s in it for Senior Management?

Step 2: Identify concrete Wellness Program outcomes.
• Identify up front what the Wellness Program is working towards.
o For example: will members lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Identify any processes or procedures that will be enhanced.
o For example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Wellness Program goals were met.
• Consider what information is really needed to show Wellness Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important information points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when determining what information to collect – consider how easily follow-up information can be collected when a Wellness Program ends. Getting follow-up information is often a challenge.
• Only collect information for health behaviors or indicators that the Wellness Program actually affected.
o For example: if the main Wellness Program goal is that members will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Wellness Program outcome (unless the Wellness Program specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Wellness Program cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Wellness Program elements must be included to move members towards the Wellness Program goals.
• The concrete Wellness Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Wellness Program on track. All Wellness Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and beginning Corporate Health Promotion Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Corporate Health Promotion Programs.