Employer Wellness

Program evaluation might  be the last step, but it ought to be planned at the beginning of your efforts!  Analysis assists you identify what parts of the program are working well and what parts need improvement.  

Then, based on the analysis data, adjustments may be made to fine-tune your wellness program.   Adjusting the program based on analysis data is critical to its continued success.  

Reviewing your program doesn’t have to be complicated.  HOWEVER, it’s important to plan how you’ll monitor your wellness efforts and determine success during the planning phase.  

Also remember to evaluate the program based on the goals and goals you already identified during your planning process.  

In order to evaluate your program you need to have a system to document specifics as you go along.  This may be as simple as maintaining file folders on programs that are offered, or a computer document with a table or spreadsheet summarizing information accumulating.  Consider –

• Program topic and numbers of workers who participated

• the numbers of  flyers taken by employees or distributed and on what topics

• the number of participants in a behavior change program and how many met their objectives as well as how many attended all the sessions

• Numbers of employees who continued the healthy behavior change following the program?

• Overall worker satisfaction with the program or each topic.  Here is a sample evaluation form.  

Depending on your objectives and objectives, gather desired data and compare it to previous data collected during the initial assessment to determine when the objectives were met.  Such data might include

• Absentee rates

• Injury rates

• Health risk factors Insurance costs  

Summarize and Report Wellness Program Results

Once you have accumulated all the examination information it needs to be reviewed with the Wellness Committee and summarized.  You will probably have positive results and some areas where a change is needed or additional focus required for continuous improvement.  

This not-so positive information can be used to make any needed changes in addition to to plan for next year and is important to include in your report.  

It is important to communicate the wellness program results to both management and employees.  Consider how management ordinarily receives reports on operations and productivity issues and include the annual wellness program report in the same format.  

At some companies the reports are made during management meetings using presentation styles such as power point slides.  At other companies, graphs and bar charts are the norm or a list of the goals and the summary outcomes reported.  

No matter the format, it’s important to convey the outcomes and successes achieved, including any anecdotal stories, in addition to areas for improvement.  Make sure to link the outcomes to the business mission and bottom line whenever possible.

Staff Members want to receive the same information!  Consider using the same communication channels used when informing workers of the wellness program –

• Company newsletters,

• Bulletin boards,

• E-mails  

Additionally consider celebrating successes and recognizing achievements by –

• Posting pictures from events

• Highlighting success stories

• Posting pictures of successes

• Scheduling a celebration

• Recognizing champions