Employer Wellness

The Corporate Health Promotion Program Committee ought to set out a plan for the entire year that outlines accomplishing objectives and goals, as well as supplies details for marketing and evaluating the program. The plan is the detailed map of what types of programs will be offered, when and where they will be scheduled, how they will be marketed and evaluated, and what the budget is.  It is significant to plan your wellness activities based on your objectives and goals, as well as the budget since different strategies will provide different outcomes.  For example, if your goal is to expand awareness on a topic, then distributing brochures or scheduling a one-time education session may be appropriate.  Still, if your intention is to change behavior, then different strategies may be necessary, such as ongoing weekly sessions and support groups.  Click here to link to Program Design Options for additional ideas.

Workplace Health Promotion Program Marketing

This is the time to plan your marketing strategies!  How can you market the wellness program and ongoing activities?  No matter how you decide to, market frequently, keep it fresh, and remind staff members repeatedly!  Consider having an overall kickoff exercise to inform everyone of the wellness program.  Senior Leadership should support the introduction or invitation so that all staff members are cognizant of their backing and leadership in the program.

Possible marketing methods:

• Sending email messages, including reminders
• Establish flyers,
• Hanging bulletin board postings,
• Composing articles,
• Sending letters or
• Distributing special invitations.  

Other Workplace Health Promotion Program Considerations:

• Is the Company Health Promotion Program promoted to all workers or to a specific target audience?
• Do you have a Worksite Health Promotion Program champion (someone who is connected with different groups in the organization, and well respected) who can help in your promotion efforts?
• If your marketing efforts aren’t working, do you have a way to revisit and adjust your strategy?
• How will you determine effectiveness and evaluate your program?  And how will you collect the information required to evaluate your program?  

Topics most frequently included in Corporate Health Promotion Programs:

• Nutrition
• Physical Activity/Exercise
• Tobacco Use Cessation
• Bone Health
• Heart Health
• The Spine
• Stress Reduction
• Chronic Disease Awareness & Prevention
• Self-care; Wise Healthcare Consumer
• Screening Services (BMI, Blood Pressure (BP), bone density, cholesterol, glucose, posture, vision, and other…)
• Ergonomic Assessments
• Health Fairs
• Kids/family Events
• Others topics that staff members have interest in  

The issues and type of Worksite Health Promotion Program planned hinge upon the needs and interest, central intention and resources available.  Program Design Options   include awareness programs such as pamphlets and/or education sessions, behavior change programs such as smoking cessation and weight loss classes, and environmental or business reinforcement such as no smoking policies or healthy selections in vending machines.  

The programs planned also depend on the demographics of your workforce.  If you have a young, healthy workforce, you may want to focus the wellness attention on keeping staff members healthy and not need to screen for disease.  Instead you might want to focus on healthy lifestyle behavior such as exercise and good nutrition to prevent the on-set of disease.  Click here for more information on strategies for keeping staff members well, identifying disease early, or returning staff members to work who already have a chronic disease.

It is also significant to consider, and plan how you will evaluate the performance of your wellness program.  The system needs to be shown for tracking certain data and recording activities depending on the program goals.  Step 7 discusses program assessment in more detail.   And Step 6 will launch your program!