Employer Wellness

The program design options hinge upon the goals and desired outcomes of your program.  If your goal is to help employees change behavior, decrease risk factors, or save medical care money then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be crucial to support that design.  

There are different wellness program design levels depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining similar results, and therefore ought not be confused.  For example, planning activities such as an employee health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having pamphlets available do not usually result in behavior change, but may expand awareness on a topic.  If the goal is behavior change then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Employer Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a short explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a employer makes health information available and accessible to employees.  This type of program can include brochures on a variety of subject matters, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most wellbeing and health fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors providing information and providing wellness screenings to employees.  

Awareness programs are inexpensive and do not require extensive employee or company time commitments.  Nonetheless, these programs do not usually result in behavior change.  Increasing awareness isn’t usually enough to generate lifestyle changes for most people, unless used to innervate staff members to register for a program being available at the company or area on the topic.  An example of this would be offering information on the dangerous effects of smoking and inviting staff members who smoke to register for a tobacco cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs frequently offer more information on a topic and usually also provide time for questions & answers, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the business a bit more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require much time for planning or attending a session.  Again, building awareness and offering information may not lead to the desired behavior modification unless ongoing support or incentives/rewards are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or seminars to offer wellness and health education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require additional business resources, cost more, and also require additional employee commitment, time and effort.  The results are often the desired beneficial lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples include smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing exercise program.

Environmental and Employer Support:  Environmental backing is often considered the highest and most important level to include when starting your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy lifestyles.  These types of design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a smoke-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Establishing workplace fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy snack machines choices,
• Offering healthy diet choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Organizing flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy snack machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing health club or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or providing insurance rewards and incentives for healthy behaviors.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all of these options.  The more integrated the approach, the more successful the results will be.  For example, a business can have smoking cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can enable an workplace tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support staff members to catch a neighborhood program; and/or on an environmental reinforcement level can establish a smoke-free workplace and grounds, offer lower health insurance for non-smokers, or offer pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Workplace Wellness Program: Components for Success

There are many main parts that have to be considered to see to the success of your Company Health Promotion Program or Company Health Promotion Program.  These include:  

• Senior Management Support & Employee Involvement
• Active Worksite Wellness Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Assessment of Outcomes and Program