Bottom Line Up Front Company Wellness Programs

Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Company Wellness Program will help you get and sustain Senior Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Company Wellness Program.

The bottom line in Company Wellness Programs answer two key questions:
• How will participant health be improved?
• What’s in it for Senior Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Company Wellness Program impacts readiness.
• Think like Senior Management: what Company Wellness Program outcomes will be important from a Senior Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask participants how they think a particular Company Wellness Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Company Wellness Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Company Wellness Program first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or implementing any part of the Company Wellness Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be improved? What’s in it for Senior Management?

Step 2: Identify concrete Company Wellness Program outcomes.
• Identify up front what the Company Wellness Program is working towards.
o By way of example: will participants lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Identify any processes or procedures that will be improved.
o By way of example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Company Wellness Program goals were met.
• Look at what information is really needed to show Company Wellness Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important information points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when determining what information to collect – consider how easily follow-up information can be collected when a Company Wellness Program ends. Getting follow-up information is frequently a challenge.
• Only collect information for health behaviors or indicators that the Company Wellness Program actually affected.
o By way of example: if the main Company Wellness Program goal is that participants will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Company Wellness Program outcome (unless the Company Wellness Program specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Company Wellness Program cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Company Wellness Program elements must be included to move participants towards the Company Wellness Program goals.
• The concrete Company Wellness Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Company Wellness Program on track. All Company Wellness Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and implementing Company Wellness Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Company Wellness Programs.