Workplace Wellness

Workplace Wellness

Workplace wellnessWorkplace Wellness Program Keys to Success

Workplace wellness programs come in all shapes and sizes. But regardless of plan design there are five common components that set the successful programs apart from the rest.

At their core, Workplace Wellness programs require constant monitoring and periodic adjustments. the programs that get mediocre results are the ones that are left to run on autopilot. That’s why for workplace wellness programs it’s critical to:

  1. Know your enemy. You have to know what’s driving your largest claim costs on your health care plan – both among employees and their dependents. This will provide the information needed to develop targeted workplace wellness programs
  2. Develop realistic workplace wellness program expectations. With wellness, what an employer gets will almost always depend on how much it spends, how well it plans and how well it sustains communications with participants and the provider.
  3. Maintain strong workplace wellness program communications. the Workplace Wellness programs that achieve the greatest success are those which are communicated aggressively from the get go and are sustained. Repetition is your friend when doing worker education.
  4. Integrate workplace wellness with other benefits. Real-life experience has shown that you should consider your employee assistance programs (EAPs) an extension of the Workplace Wellness program. You should also consider issues like absenteeism, disability and worker’s compensation to be pieces of the wellness puzzle.
  5. Practice what you preach. The key to ensuring worker buy-in is for management to lead the workplace wellness program by setting a positive example. When upper-level managers are unwilling to participate and address their own health issues, don’t expect many employees to take the workplace wellness program seriously.

Employee Recognition and Workplace Wellness Programs

The best employee recognition practices are often the simplest ways to motivate participation in workplace wellness programs

Here’s one that’s lately been adopted at the publishing business where a friend works – a program called “See something good, say something good.” It’s a way for staff members to bring positive attention to things that their coworkers, managers and the company’s different departments do well.

How it works – the company provides colorful index cards, placing them conspicuously in a few widely traveled areas in the building. When workers and supervisors want to publicly recognize someone else’s efforts, they are able to grab a card and fill it out. It takes very little time.

When the index card is filled out, the staff member drops it into a wrapped box (there are two in the building). the boxes are later collected and the cards displayed in a room the corporation uses periodically for meetings, presentations and quarterly staff member appreciation events.

In order to build awareness and participation in “Say Something Good,” management put up fliers around the building, so people from every department can see them, in addition to visitors and job applicants who’ve come in for interviews.

The program, which was originally thought up by the head of our product advertising and marketing division, doesn’t cost anything apart from the cost of the index cards and paper. There’s minimal administration time, and it takes employees only a moment or two to fill out a card on a fellow employee’s behalf.

But the return is a lot of, and the recognition possibilities are endless. It’s a good way to improve morale, encourage productivity and differentiate the business culture from work environments where the negative things seem to get the lion’s share of the attention.