Employer Wellness : Popular Employee Wellness Programs

Some of the top wellness programs currently in use today include:

Health Risk Assessments or HRAs

Health Risk Assessment is a top corporate wellness program currently in use globally. Employers that enable it determine the safety and health issues of employees by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the employees.

It can, for example, guide the organization into determining how the air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment team to come up with the measures essential to correct the issue. An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure staff members have to certain hazardous or dangerous materials and practices.

Immunizations

This isn’t always practiced in every country since there are regions where government sponsored immunization shots are available. However, it has also become an important component of the top Employee Wellness Programs in many businesses in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are provided to workers for no cost.

Employee Assistance Program(EAP)

Employee Assistance Programs consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from providing educational resources to workers regarding health concerns to sponsoring health services and health care. In numerous businesses, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house nutrition and diet drives

This is another wellness program that organizations use, especially those that offer in-house commissary or cafeteria services. Instead of serving richer, high-calorie fare, cafeterias offer options for a healthier diet, usually in the form of low-calorie foods and sugar substitutes.

In-house employee wellness newsletter and campaign drives

One of the top wellness programs that businesses can implement is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to encourage wellness, coupled with a visible campaign. The campaign may be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, such as smoking risks, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the worksite, etc.

The employee wellness newsletter in itself can be an effective means to deliver information to workers or members of a business but it is far from perfect. Some workers, for example, may not read the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. If the problems outlined in the newsletter are promoted through an active and highly visible campaign, it will be easier to maximize beneficial results.

Exercise and physical activity drives

Another top wellness program for corporations is one that involves physical activities. Employers often sponsor exercise-related events such as marathons and company sports programs to promote workers to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized corporations, corporations may even pay for health club memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Incentives

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by employers involve Incentives. This involves corporation-sponsored programs that reward employees for achieving specific wellness-related goals and objectives. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for wellness programs are two of the most commonly rewarded schemes. Rewards can range from special recognitions to over time acquired points (for bigger rewards) to specific gifts. In a few cases, cash may also be used.

Nevertheless, incentive systems have had mixed reactions and levels of success. But it continues to be one of the top choices among organizations who are willing to modify it in order to fit their unique needs.

Peer Pressure

In many corporations, corporations take advantage of peer pressure in order to bolster employees to participate in wellness programs. This is currently one of the favorite Worksite Health Promotion Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help encourage competitions referring to worksite wellness and to persuade employees to be active in company-sponsored wellbeing and health fairs.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am and is filed under Employer Wellness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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