Posts from — September 2008

Finding an individual to lead your employer in starting a Company Wellness Program

Without a qualified Company Wellness Program coordinator to lead and manage your employer’s creation of a culture of health, efforts can be scattered and momentum can stall. While it’s essential that the creation of a culture of health be someone’s priority, not all employers need a full-time coordinator.  There are a number of ways to gain the time of a qualified coordinator.

Be careful not to confuse Company Wellness Program skills with fitness skills. You are not looking for a personal trainer or a nutritionist to run your Company Wellness Program. The following are good indications that an individual may be qualified to be a Company Wellness Program coordinator:

• knowledge of community health, population health and worksite Company Wellness Programs
• experience working with and understanding aggregate data, preferably Company Wellness Program data
• experience managing projects, including developing timelines and facilitating meetings
• experience in strategic planning, including defining goals and related objectives
• ability to understand, and use the findings of, journal articles on effective Company Wellness Program Procedures.

What will a Company Wellness Program coordinator do?

The Company Wellness Program coordinator is responsible for guiding a process that establishes worksite facilities, policies and practices that promote health. The individual may do some of all of the following for your Company Wellness Program:

• act as a liaison between leadership and the Company Wellness Program employee advisory workgroup
• interpret health-related data on your Company Wellness Program
• establishe and manage work plans and budgets for implementation of selected Company Wellness Program Procedures
• facilitate Company Wellness Program Committee meetings
• lead your employer in setting measurable goals for the Company Wellness Program
• recommend effective Company Wellness Program Procedures, using the evidence in the health behavior literature and national and/or recommended best practices
• document and report short-term and long-term progress on Company Wellness Program Procedures and goals.

Where can we find a qualified Company Wellness Program coordinator?

Explore the following when looking for a Company Wellness Program coordinator:

• Existing staff: Are there individuals on staff who have the background, or are interested in gaining the skills, to support as a Company Wellness Program coordinator? Is it possible to dedicate a portion of someone’s time (e.g., .5 FTE) to the position of coordinating your employer’s Company Wellness Program Procedures? If possible, budget enough to cover not only salary but also continued learning, journal subscriptions and membership fees for this Company Wellness Program position.
• New staff - Can you hire an individual to be your employer’s Company Wellness Program coordinator? Would it need to be a full-time position, or would part-time be sufficient?
• Company Wellness Program Consultation - Various employers (e.g., health plans, benefit consultants and public health departments) provide Company Wellness Program consultation on building a culture of health within a worksite.

An outside Company Wellness Program consultant can advise an internal Company Wellness Program coordinator and your Company Wellness Program Committee on setting priorities and selecting Procedures. Or, you can contract with a Company Wellness Program consultant to be your coordinator. If you choose the latter approach, you’ll want to contract with the individual for sufficient hours to carry out all of the responsibilities associated with coordinating an effective strategy.

Strong and visible leadership support for the Company Wellness Program promotes health and is essential to securing required Company Wellness Program resources (staff, time, and money) and implementing recommended changes.

1. Identify a Company Wellness Program champion

In a small employer, there may be a single leader who is the clear choice to champion the Company Wellness Program. In a larger employer, look for an executive with the authority to sway others in the highest levels of the organization regarding the Company Wellness Program. The Company Wellness Program champion need not be the fittest member of leadership. Rather, look for a Company Wellness Program leader with the disposition to be a visible and vocal supporter of worksite policies that encourage healthy behaviors. Organizations with multiple sites can consider whether it would be useful to have an executive Company Wellness Program champion at each site.

2. Find existing Company Wellness Program allies

There may already be a number of individuals within your employer who recognize the value of a Company Wellness Program. Think about who those individuals are in your employer; consider areas such as occupational safety, union representatives, risk management, health officers, and human resources when looking for a Company Wellness Program ally. Capture their stated support for the Company Wellness Program. Company Wellness Program support could include contributions of staff time or expertise, financial resources, agreement to endorse/support policy and environmental changes, or agreement to participate in, and voice their support for, changes in the worksite that will help to build a culture of health.

3. Build a business case for the Company Wellness Program

There is a reason that more and more corporations are finding a way to promote the health of the employees via a Company Wellness Program and policies: A Company Wellness Program makes good business sense. employees with healthy behaviors, on average, are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism)1 and incur lower healthcare costs than workers with less healthy behaviors.2,3  As a result it would be foolish not to have a Company Wellness Program.

4. When developing a Company Wellness Program use what you know about leadership styles and the decision-making process within your employer

Every employer is different. Build leadership support for the Company Wellness Program in the way that makes the most sense for your employer. Think about the following as you plan how to approach leadership for Company Wellness Program support:

• What are the current pressures and priorities facing executives? How could a Company Wellness Program and a healthier workforce support those priorities?
• How do the leaders prefer to receive data: written documents? verbal presentations?
• What kinds of Company Wellness Program information are likely to sway decisions? Do they want data and Company Wellness Program statistics specific to your employer, or are state or national data sufficient? Are the leaders more influenced by internal factors or by what competitors are doing?
• Who would the leaders see as a credible messenger for this Company Wellness Program information? Does someone from the risk management area carry more clout than someone from the human resources area?
• How do decisions really get made in your employer? Informal committee meetings? Formal or informal meetings between executives? Plan accordingly and you improve the odds that the Company Wellness Program will become a reality.

5. Maintain Company Wellness Program support once you have it

Once you have appropriate Company Wellness Program support, ensure that you maintain it by regularly updating the leaders on the health of the employees and progress toward starting a culture that promotes health. Ask upper management how frequently they want to receive Company Wellness Program progress reports.

Source Information:
1 Bunn, JOEM, 2006, 48:10.
2 Foldes, Bland, An et al. Modifiable Health Risks and Short-Term Health Care Costs. BC/BS of Minnesota internal research, submitted for publication.
3 Anderson, 2000, American Journal of Health Promotion, 15:1.

Select Company Wellness Program Procedures

Focus your employer’s Company Wellness Program resources (time, energy and money) on strategies that are most likely to produce results:  a rise in healthy eating, a rise in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of studies and has identified the Company Wellness Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Company Wellness Program strategies are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Company Wellness Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Company Wellness Program Procedures

Once you’ve chosen your Company Wellness Program Procedures, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Company Wellness Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your employer.  Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Company Wellness Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Communicate and Educate About the Company Wellness Program

Ensure workers are aware of the Company Wellness Program opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Company Wellness Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with workers without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Company Wellness Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Company Wellness Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you implement a Company Wellness Program strategy rather than as an afterthought.   Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in worker morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in rates of absenteeism or healthcare claims.

Report both your Company Wellness Program successes in building a healthy worksite environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides workers time for walking during the workday), and Company Wellness Program successes in getting employees to take charge of their health (a rise in the number of workers who contacted the stop-smoking program, or a rise in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).