The Last Wellness Plan You’ll Ever Need

A corporate wellness program you’ll actually use.

The health and fitness of employees are becoming increasingly important in a corporate environment since their health and well-being are indicators of the organization’s overall health. This has placed pressure on management to focus on improving staff’s health status factors through corporate wellness interventions. This, however, may only sometimes have the desired effects, as there needs to be more communication about what constitutes wellness, how to carry out effective wellness programs, and how to carry along staff who may need more motivation to participate. This article will cover why many wellness programs fail to achieve their goals, the fundamental principles to keep in mind when attempting to create one, and practical steps to help you effectively execute the plan in a way that genuinely benefits your workforce. 

Many wellness programs need help with the same issue: a fundamental miscommunication about the purpose and goals of the program between management, staff, and facilitators. This is because of the (highly vague and loaded) stated final goal of wellness exercise: employee engagement. Employee engagement has recently been overused as a term in corporate language, leading to its existence as a “catch-all” word that describes almost any kind of employee activity. 

“The term “engagement” can describe sending an email to a co-worker about work or simply sending a text message. Because of its broadness, the term is unhelpful for discussing particular workforce goals, as confusion may set in at any stage and cause the program to run off track. For these reasons, three basic principles must be adhered to by management for the wellness program to be well-received by and successful with members of staff.

Top-down approach: For a corporate wellness program to be successful, there needs to be a concerted effort emanating from leadership and management, detailing both what the larger goal of the program is for the company, as well as what is expected of each employee. By providing this clarity, employees will be able to understand the changes required by the program, thus reducing resistance and apathy. As a result, workers will be more accountable to each other and the program because they can connect their personal growth or actions with the outcome of the workforce and company.

Intentional: Short-term or unfocused interventions are likely to be less effective at promoting wellness in the workforce because such interventions often need to be appropriate and sustained to be appropriately effective. Plans that involve hands-off approaches like health risk assessment testing or offering participation incentives can be valuable parts of a program but will be utterly inadequate if used in isolation. Learning about health risks without accompanying solutions can be demoralizing for a worker, and incentives could be counterproductive to engagement by linking it to rewards that may sometimes not be available. 

Strategic: For the program to be effective, it has to be well-tailored, both for the goals it intends to achieve and for the people that will engage in it. To accomplish this, the program must address the engagement issue it is meant to solve; for example, a weight loss program that only involves exercise with no dietary guidance is likely to achieve poor engagement. The program should also make sense for the workers, meaning it should be administered at a time and in a place that is conducive for all employees and allows for maximum participation. Effective than one that offers both.

Practical Steps to Setting Up Your Wellness Plan/Program

As you frame your thought process for your plan around the principles above, there are also concrete actions you can take to ensure your wellness program is a success.

Define your goals: As said earlier, it is essential to clearly state what the purpose or goals of your program are, make those clear to potential participants or facilitators, and also define what success at the program tangibly looks like for the company and how that success can translate to increases in management or employee satisfaction and growth, respectively.

Set a budget: A budget is an excellent way to set artificial limits or “guardrails” around the program and prevent it from spiraling into a larger or more complicated endeavor than expected. A budget will also send a message to any facilitators about what kind and level of service your workforce requires, ensuring communication is maintained.

Set up a planning team: For a wellness program to be successful, it is crucial to involve the employees who will benefit from it in the planning process to make plans that will engage and motivate them. In addition, it prevents logistical issues like time/date conflicts from being pre-emptively resolved among workers.

Make it top-of-mind: Promoting and maintaining awareness of the program details within the office is the best way to ensure maximum participation. You can do this by internally marketing the program. In such a case, short-term incentives may be more effective.