How to Write Wellness Program Goals and Objectives

Why have Wellness Program goals?

Wellness Program goals take your corporation’s priorities for employee health improvement and make them specific and measurable. Well-defined Wellness Program goals provide direction for determining Procedures and a basis for which to measure progress.

Writing Wellness Program goals

Writing Wellness Program goals is not complicated or difficult. It does require some thought, about your corporation’s Wellness Program vision for a culture of health and they should be:

Specific Wellness Program Goals
Measurable Wellness Program Goals
Attainable Wellness Program Goals
Realistic Wellness Program Goals
Timely Wellness Program Goals

Specific Wellness Program Goals: What is the specific outcome your corporation is looking for? “Reduce smoking among employees” is more specific than “Improve the health of employees.” You may wish to write some goals about specific outcomes (reducing smoking among employees) and other goals about specific progress (implementing a tobacco-free campus policy or reducing the price of fresh fruit in the cafeteria to 25 cents a piece).

Measurable Wellness Program Goals: Making your goals measurable provides a means of evaluating your progress and success. There is a saying: “what gets measured, gets done.” Goals which are measurable can be effective motivators for your corporation. “Provide more time for employees to be physically active” is much less measurable than “implement a daily 15-minute walking break into the schedule of all employees.” “Increase the number of employees who want to quit smoking” is less measurable than “increase enrollments in the stop-using tobacco program to 120 employees per year.”

Attainable Wellness Program Goals: Establish goals that challenge your corporation to change and that will demonstrate a real commitment to employee health. At the same time, set goals that are achievable. Goals that are set too far out of reach can be overwhelming and may become a barrier rather than a motivator.

Realistic Wellness Program Goals: Write goals that are do-able, given the skills, time, finances and overall strategy of the corporation. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Timely Wellness Program Goals: When do you hope to achieve the goal? Next week? Next year? Without a timeframe, the goal is still not clear and is much less likely to galvanize resources and energy within your corporation.

“Reduce the percent of employees who use tobacco from 20 percent to 10 percent” is much less of a challenge than “By the end of 2010, reduce the percent of employees who use tobacco from 20 percent to 15 percent”.