Posts from — December 2010

Incentives could be used to elevate participation rates, help with completion or attendance at wellness programs, and to help person change or adhere to healthy behaviors.

The purpose of the incentive is to encourage staff to adopt positive behaviors or maintain an existing positive behavior.

Everybody who achieves a goal or maintains a behavior ought to receive something. Many corporations also provide incentives merely for participating in events.

Stay away from being the “best” or doing the “most.” Encouraging people  to be the best or doing the most promotes excessive behavior, discourages others, and creates elitism.    

The best designed incentive programs are ones which are based on achieving goals that are attainable by most person. Recognition, acknowledgment by top management, or special privileges are examples of great intangible incentives.   

Wellness Program Incentive Ideas -    

o  Free or Low-Cost Incentives-     

   o Certificates

   o Movie passes

   o Recognition in worker newsletter

   o Mugs

   o Water bottles

   o Commendation from senior level management

   o T-shirts

   o Hats

o  Moderate Cost Incentives -     

   o Entertainment tickets

   o Sweatshirts

   o Waist packs

   o Subscriptions to health magazines

   o Health and fitness books

   o Videos

o  High Cost Incentives -     

   o Week-end getaways

   o Dinner for two

   o Clocks

   o Watches

o  Other Incentives -     

   o Cash

   o Gift certificates

A major concern in wellness programming is attracting employees to participate and maximizing participation. When introducing a wellness program, a letter briefly explaining the wellness program signed by the president or CEO is a great endorsement.

Utilizing posters, newsletter articles, and flyers are good means of promoting the wellness program. Other promotional methods to consider are e-mail and announcements at staff meetings. Ask wellness committee members to recruit participants.

Once the health promotion program is kicked off you might want to provide an incentive for any worker who recruits another worker to any of the health promotion program offerings.

When picking  a health promotion program from a provider you should ask the following questions -

o  How many workplaces have done the wellness program?

o  What types of worker population was the health promotion program offered?

o  What educational materials are used?

o  Will the wellness program meet the needs of employees?

o  What are the techniques used to help change behaviors?

o  Does the health promotion program help individuals  move through stages of readiness to make health behavior changes?

o  Just how do you market the health promotion program to employees?

o  What follow-up do you provide?

o  Exactly how do you make referrals for medical care or other supportive services workers may need?

o  Exactly how do you know the wellness program works?

o  Just how do you measure participant satisfaction?

When staffing your wellness program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness staff or contract with wellness experts from outside your company.

Small and medium size worksites do not generally have a wellness expert on staff. If your worksite is in this category, you’ll need to contract with providers outside your company.

Large businesses have a few choices. They can hire a staff solely for the health promotion program, they can contract with outside wellness providers, or they are able to use a combination of internal staff and outside providers.

When picking  a provider some key questions in the areas of staff, wellness program structure, process, and effectiveness need to be addressed. Each of these key questions is discussed in the following sections.

Wellness Business Staff

Health specialists become wellness specialists when they are trained in the full range of wellness activities. Health Promotion specialists are generalists who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and schooling.

They may be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But also to their primary training, they know something about all wellness topics, including smoking, stress, exercise, and nutrition.

They also know how to engage and support individuals  in making and sustaining health improvements and have good individuals  skills.

Typically, wellness specialists at workplaces fall into three broad categories, wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and wellness instructors.

o  Wellness screeners introduce workforce to the health promotion program, take health measurements, collect health-related information, provide initial counseling, and help workforce define for themselves what they need and want in a health promotion program.

o  Health Promotion counselors work with workforce after the screening to help them create and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.

o  Health Promotion instructors teach courses and minigroups on different health topics.

A wellness program in a small corporation may be staffed by a single staff person who fills all three roles. Bigger workplaces will use different people  to fill these roles.

When picking  staff or picking  among wellness organizations, ask the following questions -

o  Do prospective workers have a range of health backgrounds that will provide appropriate specialistise in the topics to be addressed?

o  Have prospective staff functioned well as wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and/or wellness instructors?

o  Will this staff include people  from the racial and ethnic backgrounds found in your employee population?

o  Is each worker comfortable with the range of backgrounds found in your worker population, and able to communicate effectively with the various social and educational levels of your employees?

o  Do workforce have a warm, but specialist, counseling style when interacting with employees?

An annual plan for the major wellness programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great wellness committee task. Often an activity and wellness theme per month is offered to staff.

Some organizations select to follow a National Health Observances calendar which offers advantages.  The materials developed by these various national health organizations are very credible.  The materials are typically high quality and available free or at a nominal cost.

The corporation benefits from additional publicity that occurs in various media throughout the community related to the national observance. for planning suggestions you may want to utilize the HOPE Publications Wellness Resource Creating Guide available for free at this Web site.

A Health Risk Assessment (HRA)  is sometimes used along with a health screening.  An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious disease and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.

An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the while a illness. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments could be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Individuals with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious health problems over time.

Drawing attention to their health risks can help customers reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary illness and subsequent premature death.

The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (such as use of tobacco, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (such as cholesterol, blood pressure levels, height, and weight).

For accuracy, it is vital to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol.  The Health Risk Assessment (HRA) also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Kinds of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.

The impact of a health risk assessment is much greater when it’s given in-person, with immediate feedback to the patron. This also provides an opportunity to invite the patron’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.

A health age could be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age might indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) programs are one the most prolific kinds of wellness activities utilized by companies. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

One of the large advantages of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a organization and could be utilized as an evaluation tool.

Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.

The most common screening performed in wellness programs is heart health assessment.

The screening can include a written heart health test, blood pressure (BP) measurement, cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol test, glucose (blood sugar), weight, educational materials specific to diet, nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, tobacco use, and weight.

The health specialist conducting the screening then provides a consultation and helps set objectives with the participant.

The backbone of wellness programming at the worksite is health screening. It’s the first major activity a organization should do when first starting a wellness program.

Biometric testing is usually used combined with the administration of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) .

The most effective way to screen is to utilize a health specialist trained in wellness screening techniques and counseling to privately and individually assess participants.

This wellness specialist takes a brief health history and measures blood pressure and cholesterol. With computerized cholesterol desktop analyzers, results are obtained in about four minutes.

Immediate feedback, consultation, and educational materials are provided. for those identified at-risk, follow-up appointments can be scheduled at this time.  The whole process takes about twenty minutes per individual.

The screening also provides an immediate opportunity to register participants in various wellness programs based on their interests and identified health risks.

Biometric testing can be done each year and used as a means of monitoring health risks within the worksite.

A health testing program needs to provide multiple opportunities for participation.  The service must be provided for all the various shifts of a business.  The screening program must be conducted in highly visible areas so the process could be observed.

Reluctant personnel often like to be able to see what the wellness program is about before they participate. When wellness screeners are not busy, they should perform outreach going to areas where personnel gather and try to recruit personnel.

When well-planned and promoted, medical screening can attract participation rates of 60 percent to 100 percent. These high participation rates have a positive impact on upper management producing support for further wellness programming.

Objectives are broad-based statements about what the health promotion program is expected to do.  The goal of the health promotion program is to enhance the health of the individual and the company. Objectives like mission statements provide direction in a health promotion program.   

Goals are specific and provide a means of measurement of the wellness program to determine effectiveness. There are two kinds of objectives, process and outcome.    

Process objectives state the activities that need to occur to achieve a desired outcome.

Examples of process objectives are -

o  Number of participants screened

o  Number of participants in and completing wellness programs

o  Satisfaction of health promotion program participants

o  Number of participants who were medically referred and saw their doctor

o  Number of promotional activities

o  Number of participants seen in follow-up

Example of outcome goals are -

o  Number of participants who improved fitness level

o  Number of participants who decreased cholesterol level

o  Number of participants who lost weight, body fat

o  Number of participants who quit tobacco use

o  Number of participants with high blood pressure (BP) who decreased their blood pressure (BP)

o  Number of participants whose initial level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk who are no longer at-risk

o  Number of participants with risk factors who saw their doctor and are being treated for high blood pressure or cholesterol years later

Wellness committees are important in that they develop a sense of ownership in the health promotion program, and facilitate various tasks involved in health promotion programming at the workplace.

The committee must be composed of a cross-section of employees representing various occupations, levels, and subgroups with the business.

A common mistake is filling the committee with the most health/fitness-conscious people  in the company. Don’t rely solely on volunteers to fill a committee. Be sure that your committee members have enough power in the company to run an effective wellness program.

The wellness committee is made up of workers from the worksite. It oversees the health promotion program and helps carry it out.

The committee should meet about once a month to review the previous month’s activities and plan future ones. When the wellness program is just beginning, the committee may meet each week until things get going.

Committee members do not carry out medical procedures, counsel customers, or handle confidential health information. Health Promotion specialists perform these tasks.

In general, the committee’s duties fall into three areas -  planning, promoting, and assisting to run wellness programs.

Planning the wellness programs can include -

o  Locating space for activities

o  Creating and organizing worksite-wide events such as contests

o  Evaluating reports prepared by the wellness program staff and making recommendations

Marketing the wellness program can include -

o  Recruiting personnel to participate in screening and wellness programs

o  Encouraging employees to take part in follow-up counseling

o  Organizing promotional strategies using newsletters, signs, bulletin boards, computers, and other media available within the worksite

Helping to run the health promotion program can include -

o  Setting up equipment for various activities

o  Assisting to conduct worksite-wide activities

o  Monitoring all activities and investigating  the performance of the specialist staff

o  Acting as wellness mentors to fellow staff

The size of the wellness committee will be dependent on the size of the business. Choose members by asking day management to nominate or appoint workforce.

Make an announcement through flyers, memos, and meetings to recruit potential members. Explain the purpose of the committee, duties and responsibilities, and the time commitment.

Recognize your wellness committee volunteers. Allow them to participate in health promotion programs at a decreased cost. Hold appreciation breakfasts/lunches/dinners.

Print names of committee members on corporation communications about the wellness program.

Purchase special T-shirts, caps, and buttons for them. Write letters to supervisors saying that you appreciate the member’s service. Develop awards certificates for members.

The following can be used as a guide for committee size -    

o  Less than 300 employees   2 to 4

o  300 to 1,000 employees   4 to 6

o  1,000 personnel or more   6 to 12