Corporate Wellness Programs

Corporate wellness has gone far beyond the health and safety concerns of decades past. The stress of working long hours, balancing family commitments and existing health problems are adding up to a crisis for employers and their workforce.

Executives and managers all over the country are beginning to see the powerful link between employee healthfulness and their bottom line. Unhealthy employees can cost corporations thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in lost productivity. Many corporations are developing business wellness programs on-site, online, and within the management of their organizations.

Firms are becoming involved in disease prevention as a way to lower their health care costs and increase productivity and improve the bottom line. But they also offer these benefits as a way to compensate for the rigors of life in a stressful business.

An astonishing 80% of employers have some type of health program, a trend that has gained strength over the past several years and continues to expand. Employers are offering a wide variety of options including health fairs, health screenings, immunizations, complementary alternative medicine, educational workshops, coaching, and safety programs.

Some corporations are taking more active roles and starting company or departmental sports teams, workday walking programs, cooking classes, massage therapists on-site, yoga sessions, stress management classes, or stress-free areas at work.

Communication about wellness is at a new intensity as well. Whether it is a newsletter strictly dedicated to wellness or a dedicated area on an intranet site, more corporations are promoting wellness. They know that the more times employees see and understand the value of improving their health and understand what programs are being offered to them, the more employees will begin to take advantage of these programs.

In addition to keeping employees healthy, some employers are finding that health and wellness programs at work can be a selling point when hiring employees. Recruits are searching for organizations that make health and wellness a priority. Also, employee wellness can add value to the total compensation package.

To begin a wellness program at work, form a wellness committee representing all levels of employees from the lowest to highest ranks, and include your insurer. The committee should set goals and determine what the wellness return on investment (ROI) can be and what the company's investment will be. Next, set goals and begin to engage the employees in subjects that concern them deeply, such as losing weight or smoking cessation.

You will need to determine whom you will contact, and how to communicate what your program offers. Another consideration is where the program will be conducted if there's not enough space in your existing facilities. Your fitness instructors and health educators are extremely important to the program's success because they are the ones who provide classes, workshops and coaching for the employees.

The most important beginning aspect is the Health Risk Assessment (HRA) for each employee. It's important to have a health coach immediately available when the employee is receiving his or her HRA results.

Beginning a corporate wellness program will bring long-term benefits to your organization through an increase in employee moral, employee productivity, and ultimately a decrease in health care costs.