Where to Begin with Company Wellness Programs

Ten Steps Toward Strategic Company Wellness Programs

The Company Wellness Program management world is evolving rapidly. Each month, there are new research findings that support the premise that Company Wellness Programs and disease management have a long-term impact on healthcare costs. Many large businesses that started Company Wellness Programs three to five years ago are showing savings in health, disability, and workers compensation costs. Small to mid-size businesses are watching all this and wondering where to start with wellness.

Getting upper management support and budget approval is one of the challenges at the beginning of a Company Wellness Program. This is the case because Company Wellness Programs can be expensive, averaging $150-300 per worker per year in large businesses. Most of the savings are not realized for a number of years. This long-term investing is hard for businesses on the move.

The key to success for Company Wellness Programs is to take a strategic approach. Here are ten steps to consider when starting a Company Wellness Program.

1. Begin with upper management. Without upper management support, a health promotion strategy can fall flat. Begin with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the company.
2. Assess the problem. Look at your healthcare claims and analyze the trends. Which conditions are driving your medical, disability, and workers’ compensation claims and which are modifiable? What’s worked and what hasn’t thus far? What is the long-term impact of doing nothing?
3. Hold an initial wellness meeting. Invite your key stakeholders both outside and inside the company. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite key health vendors including health, disability, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing. Review claims and utilization information and identify key areas of concern. Look at current offerings and see how they can be tailored to the needs of the population.
4. Look at both healthy and unhealthy workers. Since 85 percent of claims are usually attributed to 15 percent of claimants, it is essential to reach those with the most costly conditions while also reaching workers who are at risk for developing preventable diseases in the future. Voluntary Company Wellness Programs such as lunchtime wellness seminars miss many of the workers who need them most. Look at initiatives that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but do not motivate everyone.
5. Establish short-term goals for the Company Wellness Programs. Establish some realistic short-term goals based on your key areas of concern. Are there any plan design changes that could have an immediate impact on spending? Are there some programmatic actions that could have immediate results?
6. Find out what workers are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where workers are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do workers have in the Company Wellness Programs? What obstacles and barriers are workers experiencing when they try to change behavior?
7. Make sure you have a high-impact Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Your first wellness dollars should go into upgrading your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A highly utilized Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide a foundation for all of your future wellness activities. A good Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a trusted link to the hearts and minds of workers. At no additional cost, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide needed follow-up coaching and personal attention for workers who are working on modifiable health behaviors or involved in disease management initiatives. Nutritionists, fitness, pregnancy, and stress management specialists are all part of a high-value Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
8. Establish three to five year goals for healthcare savings and measure them. Get help from your broker and insurance carrier help you on long-term goals for your health, disability, and workers compensation plans. Begin program metrics that will help you to measure ROI. Go beyond participation rates, completion rates and program satisfaction. Measure changes in readiness, changes in behavior, and changes in risk factors. Begin rigorous methods to measure healthcare savings over the long term.
9. Establish goals for organizational health. Look at the more intangible benefits of a wellness initiative and quantify them whenever possible. Include worker turnover rates, cost of new hires, worker morale, benefit satisfaction information, and employer of choice issues in setting goals. Begin ways to measure success in these areas.
10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a Company Wellness Program strategy, a communication strategy, and a Company Wellness Program incentive strategy that will fit with your corporate culture. Focus on integration of related components along a health continuum with communications that are focused, simple, and human. Begin a budget that includes key components such as consumer education, health promotion, health risk assessments, and regular biometric screens.