Heart Monitor
Employee health programs offer businesses several advantages. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a healthy workforce has lower levels of absenteeism, fewer medical expenditures and higher levels of morale and productivity. There is no company so small that it cannot benefit from some form of workplace wellness initiative. A successful program is one that is smoothly integrated with your company's existing mission statement and corporate vision.
Instructions
Assess & Plan a Health Program
1. Make a list of possible objectives for your health program. A target could be to reduce the incidence of chronic illnesses such as hypertension or diabetes among your employees. More general goals could be to increase physical activity levels, encourage healthier diet decisions or decrease stress.
2. Identify specific steps your company can take to reach these health targets. For example, you might consider installing an exercise room or revamping your vending machine and cafeteria food choices. Decide if you will offer monetary or other incentives to boost employee participation in the program.
3. Determine how you could measure the success of each initiative over time. This might be as simple as monitoring participation levels. If you can link the outcome to an actual dollar amount of increased productivity or a decrease in company health spending, that is ideal.
4. Use your employee demographics data to help you identify which objectives might have the greatest impact on your workers. For example, a middle-aged workforce could benefit from free health screenings to catch the early onset of serious diseases. Use this information to narrow your list of options.
5. Review your budget to determine which initiatives are realistically affordable. Sometimes you can reduce the scale of a specific portion of a health program instead of eliminating it altogether. There is nothing wrong with starting out small.
6. Sit down with your focus group and your remaining list of options to choose three main goals for your wellness plan. Limiting your initial objectives will allow you to focus on implementing them properly.
7. Brainstorm the best strategy for introducing the new health and wellness program to your workforce. First impressions are important, so inspire employees by making the benefits obvious and participation simple.
Tags: Assess Plan, Assess Plan Health, benefit from, list options, Plan Health
