Summertime! The living is easy and, depending on your industry, your work life might be slow.
But the lazy, hazy days of summer can be a great time to clean up, get organized and jump-start any long-term projects that have languished in your inbox.
Have you been waiting for the “right time” to start a company wellness program? It could be now! In two parts, here are six tips for six weeks to build the foundation of a great worksite wellness program. You’ll be up and running by Labor Day.
1. Assess your needs
As with any major undertaking, it can be hard to establish a starting point for your wellness program. An HRA (health risk assessment or appraisal) can help. Your employees will take a completely confidential questionnaire about their personal health history, physiology, lifestyle habits and outlook on change. They’ll receive a personal report that assesses their health status, estimates their biggest risks and recommends some starting points for making healthy changes. It’s a great tool for making people aware of their own health and motivated to improve it.
Meanwhile, you’ll receive an executive-level aggregate report that identifies prevalent health risk factors in your employee population and provides data on health-related costs for your organization, so you can start tailoring a health promotion/wellness program to the needs of your people.
2. Reduce unnecessary doctor/ER visits
If you can only offer one wellness program, it should be medical self-care. In 25 independent studies, AIPM’s self-care books have demonstrated an average savings of $76.02 per employee in just over 8 months. That’s a proven record of savings for your organization. And it can save your employee’s lives.
The foundation of any medical self-care program is a book or pamphlet that answers the questions:
- Is this a real emergency?
- Should I see a health care provider?
- Can I treat myself at home?
- What self-care steps should I take?
A medical self-care book can prevent someone from going to the E.R. or seeing a doctor when it’s not really necessary. But it can also help a person identify the warning signs of a major problem, like a heart attack, and seek immediate treatment.
3. Communicate
Yes, there is a wealth of promotional material available to help you get the word out about your program — newsletters, posters, calendars, brochures, flyers, broadcast emails, table tents. Yes, it is important to use them to remind your employees to use their self-care books, attend your lunch-and-learns, take advantage of your program’s gym discount, log in to your e-health portal, etc.
But it’s good to keep your program’s goals in mind and think of your communication as just that — communication. The two-way kind, not just a one-way marketer/audience relationship. Reach out to your employees and find out what they find useful in your wellness program and how they prefer to receive information from you. Listen to their concerns (e.g., privacy) and pay attention to their priorities (e.g., weight loss).
And then remember to use that feedback when you work on your program.
We’ll be back with part two tomorrow.