Company WellnessCompany wellness programs and company wellness consulting

Successful wellness programs are designed to meet the needs and interests of the staff. Ask staff what they’re interested in, and what needs they have.

People  are more willing to participate and support wellness efforts if they are involved in the decision-making process. Review the sample staff member survey provided below.

Employee Interest Survey – can be edited (http – //www.ibx.com/pdfs/custom/workplace_wellness/company_tools/employee_interest_survey.doc)

When developing a recent survey, keep the following hints in mind –

• Ask mostly closed form questions, namely if you’ll be sending the survey to a large number of personnel. Closed form questions provide specific options and are easy to tabulate.

• Invite comments, suggestions and recommendations, or ask open-ended questions at the end of the survey. Open-ended items are more difficult to summarize.

• Include a brief explanatory cover letter with the survey with the signature of the organization president. Be certain to include a statement about confidentiality and anonymity.

• Ask a group of representative employees to review the survey before it is distributed. Find out when the questions are going to be understood by employees and won’t be objected to.

• Include demographic information at the beginning, or end of the survey (gender, age, shift, site, department, etc.).

• Conduct a random drawing for a valued incentive item for all those who returned the survey. This could increase the response rate.

One rule to consider concerning surveys is if you have fewer than 500 workforce, everyone should receive one.  The advantage of everyone receiving a recent survey can be significant. When you have over 500 workforce, a sample of the work population from each department will suffice.

The higher the response, the more accurate and reliable the results. A minimum response of 40 percent to 50 percent is considered valuable.

A vital first step in organizing your corporation’s wellness program is the formation of a wellness committee.  The focus of the wellness committee is to plan, promote, and implement the wellness program.

The committee establishes continuity, motivation, and wide ownership of the wellness program in addition to provides an great car for communication.

So who ought to be on the committee? Consider appointing the following individuals /departments to your committee –

• upper management within your corporation

• Union representatives

• Human resources  department

• Employee assistance program

• Information technology

• Communications

• Health and safety department

• Employees interested in wellness

Building a successful health promotion program requires staff time as well as money. Some larger companies may spend 20 hours per week for three to six months preparing all the steps prior to launching a health promotion program.

Anywhere from 4 to 10 people  meeting monthly is equivalent to a wellness committee. A mission statement for the committee should be created by the second meeting. This way, everybody knows what the committee is working toward.

Once a health promotion program has been established, the committee’s size and meeting schedule may change. Still, no fewer than 4 members ought to meet at least quarterly so the group – and the health promotion program – doesn’t fade away.

Support from upper management is essential to building a successful wellness program! Visible upper management support is one of the most crucial factors in the success of a workplace Health Promotion Program.

Senior level management executives are responsible for making sure that the corporation meets its goals. They can provide additional assistance by helping you to link your Health Promotion Program goals to corporation outcomes, thereby positioning Health Promotion Program as a fundamental part of the corporation.

It’s vital that you create support and excitement for the health promotion program from all levels of the organization including executive management, mid-level management, and grass-root workforce.

The challenge for any Health Promotion Program coordinator is convincing senior level management about the potential value of Health Promotion Program to the company and conceptualizing how wellness programs can impact the company in a meaningful manner.

The American Journal of Wellness is a excellent resource to assist you with obtaining convincing information on the benefits of a Wellness Program.

Health Promotion Program support from upper-level management can come in many different ways –

• Involvement in the planning process

• Distribution of funding for the wellness program

• Support for time given to the health promotion program

• Participation in wellness events

• Leadership by management, like the distribution of a letter of support for the wellness program.

• Download a sample letter requesting senior management support. (http – //www.ibx.com/pdfs/custom/workplace_wellness/company_tools/sr_mgt_support.doc)

• Flexibility of worker schedules to accommodate wellness activities

The first step in developing your wellness/Wellness Program is to understand your organization and how Wellness Program will fit into the current structure.

By researching your corporation’s history with similar health promotion programs and eliciting feedback from peers, you can find the best solution for your company.

Health Promotion Program –  Research Questions

• Find out when Health Promotion Program has been done in the past. If so, what worked and what did not?

• Was it widely accepted?

• Was health promotion programming successful? Why or why not?

• What does your business hope to gain from beginning a Wellness Program?

Answers to these questions will help you start the process of creating a culture of wellness within your organization. It is critical that you assess the environment before beginning a wellness program.

The costs of health care have been rising more than 10 percent yearly for a few years. A substantial amount of the money spent in the health care system treats costly diseases and diseases.

• Approximately 95 percent of the $1.4 trillion that we spend as a nation on health goes to direct medical services, while about 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.

• Potentially, 50 percent to 70 percent of all diseases are preventable as they’re associated with modifiable health risks.

• In an effort to optimize staff member health, reduce avoidable health care utilization and enhance work performance, and in turn lower health care costs and improve staff member satisfaction and retention, many companies are developing, or are interested in developing, Health Promotion Programs for workforce.

The benefits of employee health promotion are well documented. Greater than 120 research repeatedly show themes such as improvements in health outcomes coupled with high Return On Investment. Some major findings include the following –

• Savings of $3.48 in decreased health care costs per dollar invested.

• Savings of $5.82 in reduce absenteeism costs per dollar invested.

• Return On Investment (ROI)s of at least $3 to $8 per dollar invested within five years of wellness program implementation.

• Lifestyle behavior change programs –  $3 to $6 Return On Investment (ROI) within 2 to 5 years.

• Self care, decision support health promotion programs –  $2 to $3 ROI within a year.

• Illness management programs –  $7 to $10 Return On Investment (ROI) within a year.

By offering wellness programs, companys aren’t only providing an additional service for workforce, but they are also gaining financially. Further, the impact of a wellness program goes beyond decreased health care cost and ROI.

A health promotion program can affect productivity, absenteeism, morale, recruitment success, turnover, and medical care costs.

* Source –  Rees, C., and Finch, R. (2004). Health Improvement –  A extensive guide to designing, beginning and analyzing wellness programs. National Corporation Group on Health, 1 (1), 1-7.

According to the American Journal of Wellness, “Wellness is the science and art of assisting individuals  change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health.

Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change could be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, change behavior, and create environments that support good health practices.

Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.”

Health Promotion Program –  Action Steps

The process of building a Health Promotion Program involves –

• Identifying the current health status of your staff

• Decidingthe appropriate wellness programs and interventions to offer

• Promoting and implementing the wellness programs

• Building in motivational incentives

• Evaluating the impact

• Revising wellness programs based on evaluation outcomes

It might even include developing policies and procedures that support staff member participation in wellness activities at your worksite (such as flextime).

Steps to Beginning a Wellness Program

• Conduct an organizational assessment

• Get upper management support

• Launch a wellness committee

• Obtain worker input

• Develop goals and goals

• Design and implement wellness program activities

• Select incentives

• Evaluate outcomes

Among the ways the government plans to improve the nation’s health is through extensive Wellness Programs.

According to the USA Department of Health and Human Services, these health promotion programs may help workforce live healthier life choices by building supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs.

Truly, among the goals of Healthful Individuals  2010, a set of health goals for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to elevate the proportion of staff that take part in a robust Health Promotion Program at their workplace to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your Employees’ Health

Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging our emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them.

As workforce, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the workplace because we have not dealt with them effectively outside of work.

This can seriously damage workplace relationships and lead to poor performance and negative feelings all around.

Many tools and techniques exist for helping us improve our emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use.

When an unpleasant mood or feeling persists over a length of time, don’t hesitate to seek out a qualified expert. Health promotion programs ordinarily have expert support already in place as part of their services.

1. Wellness Coaching –

Among the hallmarks of emotional health is the willingness to ask for help when we need it.

Confidential specialist help, the coaching and counseling provided by employee assistance or health promotion programs, can provide an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based problems in lieu of “working them in” to your job.

2. Self-help Groups –

Self-help groups are designed to aid people  in emotional situations in which they feel alone.  The purpose of these groups is twofold –  to allow people  to safely feel and express their emotions, and to help break their isolation at work and/or in society at large and reintegrate them into society with the support of a coworker group.

The classic self-help group is Alcoholics Anonymous, but thanks to technology, it’s possible to connect with others that have common health challenges, no matter how unique the situation.

Individuals  are taking benefit of tele-conference groups and social web sites, such as sparkpeople .com and revolutionhealth.com. Wellness programs often have such groups available through online or telephone support. Progressive corporate wellness provider

Exan Wellness, for example, offers teleconference cell groups and moderated wellness forums for interacting with others in a supportive, confidential and anonymous environment.

People  with shared challenges get together and discuss the emotional challenges they are facing at work or in other areas of their lives and work through change together.

3. Journaling –  Journaling is often advised by counsellors as a way to help identify and process emotions. Individuals  record their emotions in writing as they experience them, in whatever form they wish.

By helping the writer gain greater emotional clarity, journaling can help in making more emotionally informed decisions. In much the same way, letter writing enables individuals  to identify and process the emotions they feel about others.

The letter doesn’t have to be sent or its contents shared –  it simply provides a place for the expression of feelings.

An 18-year-old “army brat,” Brent has always done well at school, academically and athletically. But in his last year of high school, something seems to have happened to him. He has lost all interest in school, becoming moody and withdrawn.

Brent describes to his guidance counselor all the times he had to move when he was growing up. Each move wrenched him from his friends and forced him to play the role of the “new kid on the block.”

The counselor suggests that Brent write letters to the friends he’s missed over the years telling them how he felt. In conclusion, he’s a chance to say a proper goodbye.

4. Assess Your Emotional Health – Organizations that seek to increase employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the workplace are more successful, according to ground-breaking journalist Daniel Goleman.

And emotional intelligence is the buzzword in workplaces these days. Some health promotion programs have information about emotional intelligence, or emotional health assessments. Seek out more information about emotional intelligence for better company health promotion.

5. Friendships/Support Systems –  Friendships allow individuals  to feel supported in their emotional journeys.  At the same time, they give individuals  an opportunity to develop their empathetic skills.

These skills are also important for worksite health. When we’re empathic with fellow workers, we help them resolve negative or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through web-based groups.

Many individuals  are finding emotional satisfaction by connecting or re-connecting with friends through Facebook and other social web sites.

Sometimes worksite stress that isn’t dealt with in a healthful manner could be brought home. A 36-year-old mother of three, Sarah, wants to be a good wife, a good mother, and a success at her job.

One day, drained after a long day at work, she shouted at her rambunctious children and threatened to hit her youngest son. Her behavior horrified her.  To make matters worse, she believes she is a failure at her job in addition to at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger colleagues advance much more rapidly up the corporate ladder despite having less experience than she has.

On the advice of a counselor, she decides to take time out for herself and take a course for amateur painters. It does not take long before she strikes up a friendship with a single mom in the class.

She once led a life very similar to Sarah’s before managing to achieve a better balance between work and family. Her new friend becomes a much-needed sounding board for Sarah and offers her perspectives on her life that she hadn’t considered before.

25 percent Jump in Business Interest in Staff Member Wellness

Employee health promotion for their staff, companys are discovering, is good for the health of their corporations as well. Health promotion programs help to cut the costs associated with poor worker health, which include absenteeism, loss of productivity and poor work quality.

A recent Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 U.S. companies indicated a significant paradigm shift in how companies view health benefits for their workforce.

Of those surveyed this year, 88 percent are committed to instituting long-term healthcare assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their personnel, with the goal of increaseing the health and productivity of their workforce. This represents a 25 percent increase in interest in wellness programs over 2007.

A strong offering of health promotion programs to meet the demand has resulted. Health assistance providers have broadened their health promotion programs with tools that address general lifestyle factors, physical, social and psychological health factors.

Programs look to predict chronic illness in their workers and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Companies also demand a way to measure the effectiveness of their health care spending.

Self-care is our motive, says Vic Lebouthillier, president of progressive wellness provider Exan Wellness.”We really believe giving employees tools to help them manage their own health, and promoting the benefits, while giving people  resources to reach out for help is the key to successful lifestyle change.

Businesses are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver wellness programs.  The kind of wellness program we have created over years delivers the highest health care return on investment.”

Combining company health promotion promotions, internet based assessments and health trackers, internet based medical information, telephone conferences and self-help groups, and access to a wide variety of health specialists, is behind the success of the Exan health promotion program. “Having internet based statistics about employees’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – ROI” says Vic Lebouthillier.

Organizations are moving beyond their traditional role as a provider of healthcare benefits to develop holistic wellness programs that pinpoint the specific health needs of their staff member populations, drive staff member behavior change and eliminate barriers to healthcare, says Jim Winkler, leader of Hewitt’s health management consulting practice.

Notwithstanding, in a separate survey of 30,000 workforce, 74% said that, although they felt their company had an obligation to help them understand how to use their health benefits program, only 12% felt the company had any right to tell them how to be healthful.

Based on these results, employers need to drive home the fact that improved health is better for their employees in addition to the organization. It is a win-win situation.

Corporations and staff members did find common ground when it came to future health care. Both surveys indicate that 95% of staff members understand that their taking care of their health today will impact future health care payments.

A similar percentage also understand the important of early detection and avoidance when it comes to saving on health care costs.

Cost is important for most corporations as well. Over 80% of those surveyed made cost mitigation a priority for 2008, but those cuts didn’t involve shifting responsibility for healthcare onto workers.

While 64% of organizations have shifted costs to their personnel, only 17% plan to do so in the next 3-5 years. Likewise with health reimbursement accounts, 20% now offer these, but only about 5% plan to use them in 2008.

These survey leads todicate corporations are getting more proactive in assisting their workforce to change behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is obviously good for the wellness of workforce, but also for the wellness of the corporations they work for.

Nearly half the companies surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to increased productivity and lower absentee rates. Over 60% plan to institute health promotion programs that help employees change and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle.

Almost of these organizations will also use data and measurements to ensure their healthcare strategies meet their healthcare objectives?

It’s clear to virtually every American (particularly those of us in business) that healthcare costs are skyrocketing out of control.

No one doubts that either the market will solve the problem OR the government will impose one on us. Managed care has failed from either a cost containment or quality of care perspective.

Organizations have reached the point where the cost of providing health insurance is nearly as burdensome as government regulation. It is time for some new thinking on health care and its impact on company and vice versa.

Employee wellness as an operational perspective in lieu of merely window dressing is one way to deal effectively with rising health care costs.

The Insurance Problem

The first step in correcting the problem is to realize that an staff member’s health is their own responsibility. Expecting employers to provide unlimited health insurance coverage is simply unrealistic and unreasonable.

It’s time for employers (on a broad scale) to reconsider their role in providing medical insurance coverage. Instead of providing complete coverage for all personnel through group plans, businesses should start to shift the burden of health coverage to those covered.

Here’s the approach. Provide catastrophic medical insurance as a group benefit to all staff members with a big enough deductible (say $5000 per employee) to make the cost inexpensive for the organization.

Then, allow workforce to buy their own medical insurance policies (based on their own needs) and pay for them through payroll deduction with pre-tax earnings.

There are numerous insurance corporations that sell individual plans on this basis. Everybody wins. Workers can tailor their coverage to their own needs and circumstances using their own doctors. Businesses win by stopping the endless cycle of rising costs and ever-changing plans.

And when individuals become responsible for the cost of their own insurance, they become more attentive to their own health.

Besides, if an staff member is interested in working for you ONLY because your business offers excellent insurance benefits aren’t they telling you they’re going to cost you more money in the future?

Create a “Health Promotion Culture”

Our current “sickness culture” perpetuates the health care crisis and hastens the demise of market-based solutions. By sickness culture, I mean our focus on health problems in lieu of on having a healthy worksite and performance culture.

Also, what would a “wellness culture” look like? First, instead of compensated sick days, staff members might  be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus.

Staff Members would be reimbursed for successful completion of tobacco use cessation and weight-loss programs. Companies would invest in corporate memberships at local health clubs so every worker can participate.

Staff Members would be offered in-house wellness programs on a variety of issues ranging from ergonomics to stress management. Finally, businesses would commit to hiring and retaining healthful workers.

Simply put, healthful workforce cost less and are more productive than unhealthful ones. Applicants ought to be screened for health habits and practices that limit their productivity and increase the likelihood of future expense.

While this may seem harsh, it rewards those workers whose personal lifestyle and habits ensure the best Return on Investment by the corporation committing to hire, train and pay them.

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Studies published in major medical journals reveal that person who use “alternative and complementary” health modalities (including chiropractic, acupuncture, yoga and massage) are ordinarily healthier, better educated, take fewer medications and miss fewer days from work than the typical American.

Since these person look for ways to stay healthy without drugs and surgery, they end up being a net benefit as for attendance and productivity. Old prejudices in this area must be discarded in order for corporations to improve productivity and increase profitability

Conclusion

Health Care costs are increasing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an awful failure. Companies are buckling under the pressure of providing health coverage to their personnel.

American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for amazing solutions. It’s time for American organizations to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the healthcare crisis.

Employee health promotion is an approach that is timely, achievable and reasonable given the alternatives. All options must be considered while we still have a chance.

Research spanning more than a decade has consistently shown health promotion programs to be financially effective and that every dollar invested on a health promotion program can return $2.30 and $10.10 by lowering absenteeism, sick day usage and by decreasing insurance costs.

In addition it’s noted that there are marked improvements in staff member performance and productivity in organizations that start a wellness program.

Healthful businesses enjoy increased staff member morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key individuals . In addition, employees are more alert and productive.

For  instance, Coca Cola reports that they save almost $500 a year per employee once they implemented a fitness program in which 60 percent of their employees participate.

Coors Brewing Business reported that employees who participated in their health promotion programs reduced their absentee rate by 18 percent.

Staff Members enjoy their share of benefits from wellness programs too. A healthful lifestyle affects every part of a person’s life, including their work environment.

Health promotion programs lead to fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Also, workforce who work at a corporation that starts a wellness program know that their corporation is concerned about their wellness.

Workers often report a reduction in their stress levels as a result of wellness programs.

As workforce feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their company; they enjoy an increase in productivity. This increase in productivity, while advantageous to the organization, is also essential to the staff member as it increases their own sense of self worth and confidence levels.

Employees who feel successful and who feel that they accomplish objectives are overall happier and in a better frame of mind.

The advantages of health promotion programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a corporation to implement a health promotion program, especially when they incorporate some form of psychological health aspect into it.

This also has social benefits as domestic violence and child abuse is shown to be decreased in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, an organization can almost not afford to have some sort of wellness program to offer to their workforce.