Company WellnessCompany wellness programs and company wellness consulting

Before you call it quits and decide to give up on having a healthier lifestyle, you may want to consider what a wellness coach can do for you. Many individuals  get so frustrated working out on their own that they give up before they really have a chance to succeed.

Luckily, by hiring a health coach you are able to avoid this issue, and end up with the body that you have been dreaming of. But before you jump forward too far, you need to know what a health coach is in addition to what one can do for you.

Ordinarily speaking, a wellness coach is a fitness trainer, dietician, and much more all rolled into one. While this may sound like an impossible job on the surface, the fact of the matter is that wellness Coaches are very good at what they do.

These experts have many years of experience in the health industry, and have a knack for communicating what they know to others on a very personal level.

The primary goal of any health coach is to work with you so that you can reach the goals that you’ve set forth for yourself.  And guess what?

If you do not know what you want to accomplish your wellness coach can help in that area as well. Simply put, they’re there to be certain that you are on the right path to success.

Wellness coaches come from a selection of different backgrounds. While most people don’t go through schooling thinking that they want to be a health Coach, over time they begin to transform into this career.

For example, many health Coaches have backgrounds in personal training, bodybuilding, health and nutrition, exercise science, and much more.

When you hire a wellness Coach, he or she will be at your disposal day in and day out. A lot of people  rely on coaches to help them on an individual basis.  And although this is a good idea for some, web-based wellness Coaches are becoming more well-liked due to busy schedules.

So before you think that you don’t have time to work with a wellness Coach, you should really reconsider. They will be willing to work with you in the capacity that best suits your lifestyle.

While working with a wellness coach you’ll be able to get specialist advice on reaching your objectives. When you want to lose weight, you’ll be supplied with an exercise plan  that will get you moving in the right direction.  The same thing holds true for those people  who want to eat healthier, get in better shape, etc.

As you can see, a health coach is more than just your average Joe. They are trained in multiple disciplines, and work with clients in order to help them reach their goals.

Wellness incorporates many facets of our daily lives. From the amount of sleep to the water we drink, to the food that we eat and the activity that we maintain, our health is dependent upon many factors of our lifestyle.

Working to improve our wellness can be challenging to achieve on our own. That is why we can utilize the assistance of a wellness Coach.

What is a health Coach?

A wellness coach is a highly educated expert who is trained in behavioral change. They hold degrees in Exercise Science, Health Education, Exercise Physiology, Counseling and Education.

A health coach helps person in recognizing current health concerns as well as preventing future health related issues. These specialists work with clients in a variety of ways including; face-to-face, telephone, instant messaging and / or via email.

The latter of those is also referred to as electronic coaching and is the most efficient and cost effective method of working with a wellness Coach.

Whatever method is used for communication a health coach provides a customized program in particular designed to address the needs and concerns of each individual customer.

Just how can a wellness coach help me?

Many person maintain several healthy habits in their lives. One person might  be a fitness enthusiast; another may abstain from alcohol and tobacco; while another may maintain a healthy daily diet.

Notwithstanding, overall wellness is much like a puzzle, and a high level of health is only achieved when each piece of this puzzle is in place. A wellness coach will assist a personal in correcting his or her missing piece of the puzzle.

An internet based health coach may address the needs of sleep deprivation, stress management, diet, or any number of health related issues.  The health coach will motivate, guide, and provide valuable resources to provide patrons with the necessary tools to make life changes.

Just how is a wellness coach unique?

A wellness coach serves a distinctly different purpose than a fitness trainer, a counselor, or a supportive family member or friend. First, a wellness coach is an expert in his or her specific field.

When a patron decides the need for a health coach he or she’ll complete a health risk assessment. Based on this assessment the patron are going to be assigned a health coach particularly selected to address his or her individual needs.

Next, a health coach is available electronically 24 hours per day. Through online communication clients have the opportunity to consult a health coach as much or as little as he could like.

Communication with a health coach may range from daily to weekly, and can occur by e-mail, journal or a combination of both. Lastly, a health coach is trained to assist in changing the way that the client thinks and the way that they view themselves.

A wellness coach maintains the purpose of helping the customer to work towards achieving a higher quality in life. This happens by addressing the cause of a certain problem rather than simply addressing the effects of a problem.

A wellness coach will help person recognize their needs, determine objectives, and take the necessary steps towards achieving these objectives.

While wellness are growing concerns in our daily lives, it could seem difficult to make the time to educate oneself and address the needs or our well being.

Working with the assistance of a health coach enables us to focus on our specific needs and make progress towards changing.

Do you find it difficult to stay excited when trying to make changes to your health? Are you aware that changes ought to be made in your daily life but you don’t know where to begin? If so then wellness coaching might just be the solution you have been seeking.

Wellness coaching is a service provided by trained specialists who work with you individually to help you reach your wellness objectives. Wellness coaching motivates, guides, and supports individual’s for reach sustainable behavioral changes by offering creative solutions to their problems.

Wellness coaching provides individually designed wellness programs to meet your unique needs by focusing on physical, mental, and emotional health. They help you become proactive in your life by eliminating unhealthful behaviors and making wellness a priority.

Benefits of Wellness Coaching for Your Employees

Employees may benefit  from wellness coaching in a selection of ways. Wellness coaching can help person decrease major health risks in their lives by changing high risk behaviors.

Some of the many reasons why staff members work with wellness coaches are to get in shape, lose weight, reduce stress, quit tobacco use, and create balance in their lives. Health Promotion coaches assist individuals with current medical problems in addition to preventing future health issues.

Because each wellness program that a wellness coach creates is unique to suit the needs of the customer, they can be sure that it will be a program that is right for them. A lot of busy staff members mistakenly believe that they do not have the time for wellness coaching.

Fortunately wellness coaching experts are able to provide their services in a variety of convenient ways. While electronic coaching through the use of e-mails and instant messaging has become a popular method because of its convenience, telephone and face-to-face interactions might also be used.

Workers have the ability to achieve their goals and improve their lives through the assistance of wellness coaching.

Benefits of Health Promotion Coaching for the Company

The overall benefits of wellness coaching for a corporation are remarkable. Worker high risk behaviors such as smoking and obesity cost organizations millions of dollars every year.

These high risk behaviors often cause preventable illness and keep employees from coming to work. Wellness coaching guides, supports, hold customers accountable, and ensures that they receive continued motivation to help them achieve their wellness goals and eliminate unhealthy behaviors in their lives.

By implementing wellness programs and using wellness coaching in their companies, companys reduce the risk of preventable illness in their companies.

This improves the overall health of employees, lowers healthcare and insurance costs, lowers absenteeism, and ultimately enhances performance and productivity.

When workers experience the advantages of higher levels wellness in their lives it causes an betterment in job attitude, energy, and morale.

Companies that utilize wellness coaching for their workers experience the advantages of higher productivity.

In today’s fast paced world our busy lives leave little time, energy, or motivation for people  to focus on their own needs.

Those that do seek to improve their wellness traditionally turn to friends, family, specialists and published materials for support and information. All too often those support structures fail to make a lasting difference.

This happens for a number of reasons. Friends and family may not be capable of helping. Working with specialists is time eating and costly and very few of us are effective at taking published, generic information and applying it to our own lives.

Gold’s Fitness Center Winston-Salem has developed a new internet based health promotion program that expands the range of support available to those wishing to make healthful lifestyle changes.

The wellness program, Gold’s Fitness Center Health Coach, focuses on the everyday challenges of making positive lifestyle changes and has the advantages of being more personalized and efficient than generic, published information and less intense and costly than specialist face-to-face counseling.

Utilizing a collaborative problem-solving model the goal isn’t to give advice, but rather to help person think through the issues and come to their own conclusions.

The coach offers ideas for consideration, assists the individual generate ideas of their own, assists the individual consider the various ideas, choose a direction, and then supports them in the implementation of their decision.

Challenging the conventional wisdom that relationship formation requires in-person interaction; Gold’s Gym has found that members and coaches can easily build significant relationships via online communication.

Utilizing industry leading technology a Gold’s Health Club Health Coach can offer members a secure, user-friendly personal website where they can access their coach in a real-time or via email with responses delivered in less than 24 hours.

The site authorizes coaches to hand choose relevant articles that are written on a consumer level and that are targeted to the issue at hand and add them to a member’s web-based personal library.

The site also contains various health promotion programs and tools which are designed to assist the coach and member to set, implement and track specific objectives.

The collaborative relationship formed between member and coach enhances the quality ice and efficiency of service.  The familiarity that a coach develops with a member’s circumstances and meaningful relationships permits them over time to more rapidly offer useful ideas and assistance.

With traditional call-in assistance lines, the time intensive exercise of getting background and contextual information is repeated each time. IN that scenario efficiency is lost.

Furthermore, Gold’s Gym Wellness Coach has developed a protocol based on key principals from the field of psychotherapy and behavior modification.

The protocol is embedded within a proprietary problem-solving that is based on the theory that people  often act without a good understanding of a problem. Their responses then complicate matters and often make matters worse.

Gold’s Fitness Center Health Coach offers the opportunity to step back, take a second look at what has going on, and quickly asses the factors influencing the situation. But, having an idea of “what” to do is very different than actually “doing” something about it.

People  need help with the follow-through. Also, after figuring out “what” to do, Gold’s Fitness Club Wellness Coach focuses on implementation.

Here Gold’s Health Club Wellness Coach builds on sound research and experience from the field of behavior modification that has to do with goal-setting and with implementation support.

The result is a highly personalized, effective, user-friendly way of bettering the wellness of an individual.  The efficient nature of the online relationship allows Gold’s Health Club Health Coach to keep the price point within reach of virtually whoever.

Information to evaluate your wellness program comes from routinely accumulated screening and follow-up data of your wellness program that look at process and outcomes of your program.

The Staff Member Medical Program has available a computerized case-management system which includes queries that allow easy assessment of process and outcome results at any point in time.

Process Investigation

Process analysis looks at the health promotion program’s impact as seen at various points in time.

Information that is gathered from the various forms that wellness workforce fill out should supply you with the following –

• Precisely how many workers were screened?

• Just how many personnel who were referred to a doctor went?

• Precisely how many workforce who expressed interest in wellness programs went?

• Just how many workers who were referred to wellness programs went?

• Exactly how many employees who went to health promotion programs completed them?

• How many staff members are in follow-up caseload?

You can use this type of process analysis to evaluate and learn about the health of your wellness program.

Health Promotion Program Outcome Evaluation

A central objective of the wellness program is to improve the health of employees. Information on how to judge how well your wellness program is meeting this objective is called “outcome analysis” because you’re evaluating  the results or outcome of your wellness program.

In wellness programs, objectives are measured by specific (outcomes) behavior changes and reductions in health risk levels. Have staff decreased their blood pressure? Have they lost weight? Are they exercising more? is alcohol consumption at a safe level?

For example these are the kinds of questions you can ask to find out if you are reaching your objectives –  

• For staff members with high blood pressure (140 / 90 or higher or on medication) at screening, what percentage have it under control (below 140 / 90) a year later?

• What’s the change in average blood pressure levels among all staff with high blood pressure 1 year after screening? Two years later?

• For staff members with high blood cholesterol levels (above 240) at screening, what percentage has reduced their cholesterol to borderline-high levels (200-239)?

• For staff members with borderline-high blood cholesterol levels, what percentages have reduced their cholesterol to the desirable range (below 200)?

• What is the change in average cholesterol levels among all workforce with high and borderline-high blood cholesterol levels 1 year after screening? Two years later?

• For staff members who were overweight at screening, what percentage have lost 20 pounds or more a year later? Ten pounds or more? What is the typical losing weight?

• For personnel who were smokers at screening, what percentages have quit smoking? for at least a year?

• For workers whose level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk at screening, what percentage have quit drinking alcohol? Are consuming alcohol at levels considered safe by CDC guidelines? Have lowered their drinking, but are still at-risk?

• For personnel, what percentages are exercising at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes?

• When levels of fitness were measured, what percentages have improved fitness?

Be certain to set a regular time such as every 6 months to look at which workforce your wellness program is reaching and how effective it is at assisting them reduce their health risks. Use this information to make new decisions about how to direct your wellness program efforts. Then make the change you need to improve your wellness program.

Some may feel that investigation is a frill; it’s not. Evaluation is a necessary part of a health promotion program. You’ll need to know what is working and what is not.

Decision-makers who fund the health promotion program need to be updated on the performance of the health promotion program. Analysis will provide you with necessary data to maintain and expand the health promotion program and convince upper-level management to continue to support the health promotion program.

The keys to a successful wellness program are persistent one-on-one outreach and follow-up counseling to encourage health improvement, adherence to treatment programs, changes in lifestyle behaviors, and to prevent relapse.

Periodic outreach and follow-up procedures provide staff members with a safety net which keeps them involved in the health promotion program and prevents treatment dropout and relapse.

Counselors should follow up on workers at least every 6 months throughout the career of the employee at the workplace.  The goals of follow-up are to –  

• Involve staff members who’ve health risks in treatment and risk reduction programs.

• Involve all workforce in wellness programs and workplace-wide wellness activities.

• Support workers in carrying out the risk reduction or health improvement activities they have chosen.

• Make certain to help personnel obey their treatment regimens.

• Avoid relapse.

• Prevent staff members from dropping out.

• Be certain to help personnel maintain behavior changes.

Follow-up may be conducted in individuals, by phone, mail, and via computer if the technology is available. Most preferable is an in-person contact.

Computer programs which may do case load management are available to help counselors track information and perform follow-up.

Priorities for Follow-Up

Individuals  with multiple health risks ought to be at the top of the list. Individuals  in key positions like union leaders or department heads with health risks should also be contacted early so that they learn what the wellness program is about and can share the information with others.

Individuals  who need a medical investigation for high blood pressure (BP) or cholesterol should also be targeted early. Many staff members will have seen their physicians then of the screening, but some will need more encouragement to do so. Those with no health risks may be followed up annually.

A follow-up counseling session can take 20 to 45 minutes.  At minimum, follow-up must include those who were told to seek medical investigation for high blood pressure readings, high cholesterol readings, or borderline high blood cholesterol readings with 2 or more other risk factors.

It might include those who were identified as at-risk for one or more of the other major risk factors –  at-risk levels of alcohol consumption, being overweight, and having low HDL.

Follow-Up With Doctors

A letter (see forms) must be sent to the doctor or clinic of each worker who’s high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or is under a doctor’s care.

The letter should explain the wellness program and should include the staff member’s relevant, current health measurements.

Along with the letter, send a self-addressed return envelope. Follow-up with the physician ought to be repeated every 6 months until it’s determined that the employee is under satisfactory control.

Contacting the doctor is important for three reasons –

• The doctors receive employees’ health measurements taken at the worksite.

• You receive the blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol readings the doctor takes and information on the treatment the doctor prescribes.

A lot of times the staff member doesn’t have this information or doesn’t remember it.  The information may be used when counseling the staff member.

• Follow-up encourages physicians to pay closer attention to heart illness risk factors among their patients.

The menu approach offers personnel a range of options to support lifestyle changes. It authorizes individuals  to choose the type of help that suits their schedules and preferences.

The four basic types of wellness programs include –

• Courses

• Minigroups

• Guided self help

• Individual counseling

Classes

Courses (8 or more) can be an effective means of providing education and social support for behavior change.  The length of a class can vary depending on topic requirements. It isn’t sufficient to offer only courses at a worksite.

A lot of employees are under time constraints with after work commitments and although they could be interested they simply can’t participate because of their schedules.

Employees may  be very eager to start a wellness program but because of lack of participants to meet class quotas, the wellness program is canceled.

Many national companies like the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Weight Watchers, etc. offer classes; you should’ve little trouble in identifying a provider for class type health promotion programs.

You could want to contact your local hospital, health department, or YMCA for possible choices. for selecting  a vendor to provide a health promotion program you could want to review the section on health promotion program structure.

Minigroups

When there is not enough interest to create a class, those who are interested in a given health topic may be formed into a minigroup (2 to 7).

The minigroup can cover the same content as a class but do so in a less formal manner. Presentation of information and discussion is the major format of the minigroup.

Guided Self-Help

Most staff do not want formal help in making health changes; they prefer to do it on their own. In guided self-help, the wellness counselors provide support, materials, and encouragement.

Meeting times may be arranged and contact may be made either in individuals, by phone, or computer. Materials may be made available at the worksite, or mailed to the individual. Some worksites now make information available via intranets or the Internet.

Individual Counseling

Among the most successful ways to help individuals change and improve their health status is counseling (or coaching) on a one-on-one basis.

In published studies, wellness programs which incorporated individual counseling as part of the wellness program process achieved significantly higher participation rates and achieved greater risk reduction/risk elimination than standard group programs. Studies have demonstrated that individual counseling is both cost effective and cost beneficial.

A wellness counselor should be trained in screening techniques, for in certain situations, they may be required to both screen individuals and counsel them. They ought to know how to do the following –  

• Review worker health risks

• Contact employees who’ve health risks.

• Counsel staff members on a one-on-one basis, helping them set objectives, solve problems, and get expert help when they need it.

• Make sure to help workforce follow their treatment recommendations and make lifestyle and health behavior changes.

• Recruit workforce into health promotion programs, such as weight reduction and smoking cessation.

• Make sure to work with personnel on a one-on-one basis using guided self-help.

• Conduct courses and minigroups when necessary.

• Be certain to work with wellness committee members to plan and conduct worksite-wide wellness activities.

Health Promotion counselors are health generalists; they must have basic understanding of a broad range of health topics and health risks.

Counselors must be able to talk with staff about their health problems and the treatments prescribed by their doctors.

They should have a good overview of nutrition, exercise physiology, pathophysiology of disease, pharmacology, psychology, and behavior modification skills.

The educational program ought to include approaches to stress awareness/reduction at the environmental level and at the individual level.

Social, physical, and organizational stressors should be explained and methods to ease or elevate stressors should be presented.

At the individual level how changes in attitudes and behaviors help one to cope with stressors; learning techniques to minimize stress response, such as meditation, relaxation response, and exercise.

Content of the program ought to provide the following –

• Identifying sources of stress

• Relationship of stress to health

• Just how the individual experiences stress, personal, family, work

• Solutions for coping and managing stress

• Techniques for reducing stress

• Value of stress, both negative and positive

• Practical steps of incorporating stress reduction into lifestyle

Personnel conducting stress management programs should have training in psychology, behavioral sciences, or related disciplines like psychological health specialists, counselors, health educators, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

Training in a reputable program on how to teach the stress management course including group process skills is a must.

A nutrition education program should include a nutritional needs assessment, education counseling, and referral as necessary.

Educational sessions and materials should include the following information –

• The relationship of nutrition and chronic illnesss

• Improving consuming patterns

• Relationship of nutrition and proper weight maintenance

• Exercise

• Stress

• Blood pressure (BP)

• Cholesterol

• Diabetes and other chronic diseases.

• Nutritionally valid information regarding the relationship of health to diet, including cholesterol, fats, fiber, alcohol, carbohydrates, salt, sugar, and vitamin/mineral supplementation.

Methods for identifying healthier foods and incorporating low-calorie, high nutrient foods into consuming habits. Guidelines for improving consuming habits must be based on or in line with national recommendations like the Food Guide Pyramid.

Instructor must be a registered dietitian, registered nurse, or have a baccalaureate degree or higher in health education with training in nutrition.

If an allied health specialist instructs the program, a consultation and review of the program design by a registered dietitian is advised.

It’s recommended that smoking cessation programs subscribe to the Code of Practice for Use of tobacco Cessation Programs.

Smoking cessation programs must be multi-component with a focus on skills to build positive voluntary behavior change practices.

Useful techniques include establishing reasons for quitting, understanding the smoking habit, various techniques for stopping and remaining a non-smoker, overcoming the problems of quitting, short-term goal establishing, weight control, stress management, importance of exercise, relationship of alcohol consumption to urges to smoke. Use no aversive or scare tactics.

In wellness programs that use aids such as the “patch” or medications such as “Zyban” appropriate consultation must be available on the usage of these aids.

The instructor should have formal training in smoking cessation from a nationally recognized organization like American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, or a nationally recognized commercial program like Smoke Enders.

Examination of success is sometimes very dubious in use of tobacco cessation programs. Measurement of success ought to include participation rate, including the number beginning the program, the number completing the program, and the typical number per session.

Likewise included, number and percent who stopped use of tobacco after the program, and the number and percent who hadn’t resumed use of tobacco by the end of one year.