Utilizing posters, newsletter articles, and handouts are good means of promoting the program. Other promotional methods to consider are e-mail and announcements at employee meetings. Ask Workplace Wellness Program Committee members to recruit participants.
Once the program is kicked off you may want to support an incentive for any employee who recruits another employee to any of the program offerings.
When selecting a program from a vendor you ought to ask the following questions:
• How many worksites have done the program?
• What types of employee population was the program offered?
• What educational materials are used?
• Will the program meet the needs of employees?
• What are the techniques used to help change behaviors?
• Does the program help staff members move through stages of readiness to make health behavior changes?
• How do you market the program to staff members?
• What follow-up do you provide?
• How do you make referrals for medical care or other supportive services staff members may need?
• How do you know the program works?
• How do you measure participant satisfaction?
When staffing your wellness program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness employee or contract with wellness professionals from outside your corporation.
Small and medium size worksites do not usually have a wellness professional on employee. If your workplace is in this category, you will need to contract with providers outside your company.
Large companies have several options. They can hire a employee solely for the wellness program, they can contract with outside wellness providers, or they can use a combination of internal employee and outside providers.
When selecting a provider some key questions in the areas of employee, program structure, process, and effectiveness need to be addressed. Each of these key questions is discussed in the following sections.
Staff
Health professionals become wellness professionals when they are trained in the full range of wellness activities. Wellness professionals are generalists who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and schooling. They may be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But in addition to their primary training, they know something about all wellness issues, including smoking, stress, exercise, and nutrition. They also know how to engage and support people in making and sustaining health improvements and have good people skills.
Generally, wellness professionals at worksites fall into three broad categories, wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and wellness instructors.
• Wellness screeners introduce employees to the program, take health measurements, gather health-related information, support initial counseling, and help employees define for themselves what they need and want in a wellness program.
• Wellness counselors work with staff members after the assessment to help them set up and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.
• Wellness instructors instruct classes and minigroups on different health subject matters.
A wellness program in a small business can be staffed by a single employee person who fills all three roles. Larger worksites will use different workers to fill these roles.
When choosing employee or choosing among vendors, ask the following questions:
• Do prospective staff members have a range of health backgrounds that will offer appropriate expertise in the issues to be addressed?
• Have prospective staff members functioned well as wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and/or wellness instructors?
• Will this employee include staff members from the racial and ethnic backgrounds found in your employee population?
• Is each employee member comfortable with the range of backgrounds found in your employee population, and able to communicate effectively with the various social and educational levels of your staff members?
• Do employees have a warm, but professional, counseling style when interacting with employees?
An yearly plan for the primary wellness programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great Worksite Health Promotion Program Committee task. Often an exercise and wellness theme per month is available to staff members.
Some organizations choose to follow a National Health Observances calendar which offers advantages. The materials developed by these various national health organizations are very credible. The materials are usually high quality and available free or at a nominal expense.
The business benefits from additional publicity that occurs in various media throughout the area related to the national observance. For planning recommendations you may want to utilize the HOPE Publications Wellness Resource Beginning Guide available for free at this Web site.
A Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) is sometimes used in conjunction with a health assessment. An HRA is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle. An HRA seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious illness and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.
An HRA instrument is derived from an understanding of the course of a disease. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments can be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Individuals with a higher number of health risks tend to have more weighty health problems over time.
Drawing attention to their health risks can help clients reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary disease and subsequent premature death. The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (such as smoking, Seat Belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (such as blood lipids, Blood Pressure levels, height, and weight).
For accuracy, it is crucial to get direct measures of Blood Pressure (BP), blood lipids and HDL-cholesterol. The HRA also supplies recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Types of measures to evaluate health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.
The influence of a health risk appraisal is much greater when it is given in-person, with immediate feedback to the client. This also provides an opportunity to invite the client’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.
A health age can be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors. The health age may indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.
HRA programs are one the most prolific types of wellness activities utilized by employers. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool. One of the big advantages of this tool is that it can support an aggregate group report of a organization and can be utilized as an assessment tool.
Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.
The most common screening performed in Company Wellness Programs is heart health assessment.
The screening can include a written heart health test, Blood Pressure (BP) measurement, cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol test, glucose (blood sugar), weight, educational materials specific to diet, nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, smoking, and weight.
The health professional conducting the screening then supplies a consultation and helps set goals/objectives with the participant.
The backbone of wellness programming at the worksite is health evaluation. It is the first major activity a company ought to do when first starting a wellness program. Health evaluation is often used in conjunction with the administration of a Health Risk Appraisal (HRA).
The most effective way to screen is to utilize a health professional trained in wellness screening techniques and counseling to privately and individually assess participants. This wellness professional takes a brief health history and measures Blood Pressure and cholesterol. With computerized cholesterol desktop analyzers, results are obtained in about four minutes.
Immediate feedback, consultation, and educational materials are provided. For those identified at-risk, follow-up appointments can be scheduled at this time. The whole process takes about twenty minutes per individual. The screening also supplies an immediate opportunity to register participants in various health improvement programs based on their interests and identified health risks.
Health screening can be done on an yearly basis and used as a means of monitoring health risks within the workplace.
A health screening program needs to offer multiple opportunities for participation. The service ought to be given for all the various shifts of a company. The screening program ought to be conducted in highly visible areas so the process can be observed.
Reluctant staff members often like to be able to see what the program is about before they participate. When wellness screeners are not busy, they must perform outreach going to areas where staff members gather and attempt to recruit staff members.
When well-planned and promoted, health assessment can attract participation rates of 60% to 100%. These high participation rates have a beneficial impact on management producing backing for further programming.
Goals are broad-based statements about what the program is expected to do. The intention of the wellness program is to enhance the health of the individual and the corporation. Goals like mission statements offer direction in a program.
Objectives are specific and provide a means of measurement of the program to determine performance. There are two types of objectives, process and outcome. Process objectives state the activities that need to occur to achieve a desired outcome.
Examples of process objectives are:
• Number of participants screened
• Number of participants in and completing health improvement programs
• Satisfaction of program participants
• Number of participants who were medically referred and saw their physician
• Number of promotional activities
• Number of participants seen in follow-up
Example of outcome objectives are:
• Number of participants who improved fitness level
• Number of participants who lowered cholesterol level
• Number of participants who lost weight, body fat
• Number of participants who quit smoking
• Number of participants with elevated Blood Pressure who lowered their Blood Pressure
• Number of participants whose initial level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk who are no longer at-risk
• Number of participants with risk factors who saw their physician and are being treated for elevated Blood Pressure (BP) or blood lipids years later
Wellness committees are important in that they create a sense of ownership in the program, and facilitate various tasks involved in wellness programming at the workplace. The Worksite Wellness Program Committee must be composed of a cross-section of staff members representing various occupations, levels, and subgroups with the employer.
A common mistake is filling the Company Wellness Program Committee with the most health/fitness-conscious people in the organization. Don’t rely solely on volunteers to fill a Company Wellness Program Committee. Make sure that your Company Wellness Program Committee participants have enough authority in the organization to run an effective wellness program.
The Worksite Wellness Program Committee is made up of staff members from the worksite. It oversees the wellness program and helps carry it out. The Worksite Wellness Program Committee should meet about once a month to review the previous month’s activities and plan future ones. When the program is just starting, the Worksite Wellness Program Committee may meet on a weekly basis until things get going.
Committee members do not carry out health care procedures, counsel clients, or handle confidential health information. Wellness professionals perform these tasks.
In general, the Corporate Wellness Program Committee’s duties fall into three areas: planning, promoting, and assisting to run programs.
Planning the programs can include:
• Finding space for activities
• Beginning and organizing workplace-wide events such as contests
• Reviewing reports prepared by the program employee and making recommendations
Promoting the program can include:
• Recruiting employees to take part in assessment and health improvement programs
• Encouraging workers to take part in follow-up counseling
• Organizing promotional strategies using newsletters, signs, bulletin boards, computers, and other media available within the workplace
Helping to run the program can include:
• Setting up equipment for various activities
• Helping to conduct workplace-wide activities
• Monitoring all activities and reviewing the success of the professional employee
• Acting as wellness mentors to fellow staff members
The size of the Workplace Wellness Program Committee will be dependent on the size of the employer. Pick participants by asking day management to nominate or appoint staff members.
Make an announcement through flyers, memos, and gatherings to recruit potential members. Explain the purpose of the Employee Wellness Program Committee, duties and responsibilities, and the time commitment.
Recognize your Worksite Wellness Program Committee volunteers. Allow them to participate in programs at a reduced expense. Hold appreciation breakfasts/lunches/dinners. Print names of Worksite Wellness Program Committee participants on employer communications about the wellness program.
Purchase special T-shirts, caps, and buttons for them. Write letters to supervisors saying that you appreciate the member’s service. Develop awards certificates for members.
The following can be used as a guide for Employee Wellness Program Committee size:
• Less than 300 staff members 2 to 4
• 300 to 1,000 employees 4 to 6
• 1,000 employees or more 6 to 12
Effective wellness programs recognize the effect of building a supportive cultural environment. The workplace culture includes shared values/heartfelt beliefs about what is significant. It includes social standards of expected and accepted behavior called “cultural norms.”
It includes peer support from family, friends, and co-employees. This support can help one adopt healthy lifestyles. Tools are available to audit a company.
The long-term success of any wellness program is dependent on the corporate culture.
Some healthy culture signs in a company are:
• workers communicate openly
• Leaders support diversity and opinion
• employees have fun
• Policies support wellness
• workers are encouraged to grow
• staff members work together as a group
• employees’ skills and talents are matched to their jobs.
• Flexible work schedules are available
• Employers consider staff members as their most significant asset