How to Execute an Effective Employee Wellness Program

Healthy employees translate to a better business, regardless of industry and employment type. You won’t find any employer who isn’t affected by sickly, tardy, and sloppy people, because these people affect production rate, costs the company in terms of paid benefits, and might even affect the health of their co-workers. At the same time, unhealthy employees can’t provide great output because they are unhappy, stressed, exhausted, and sluggish. Considering that, there are still some employers who see employee wellness as a benefit, when in fact it should be routine because they won’t be successful unless they care for their employees’ well-being.

Successful people achieve what they do because they feel good. Therefore, if you want to maximize the performance of your people, you need to establish an effective employee wellness program. Not sure where to start? Here’s how you can turn an employee benefit, into an investment that will give you thousands in return.

Launching the Perfect Employee Wellness Program

• Figure out what your needs and your employees needs are

The only way to determine this is by looking at both sides. Try to understand how your people think and what challenges they encounter. A great way to identify the problem areas is by conducting health risk assessments, employee surveys and comparing monthly performance against attendance records.

• Examine the data gathered and formulate a plan

By examining the data gathered, you can figure out what type of benefits will work for most of your employees. For instance, will your employees be motivated by fitness classes, or would they prefer health assessments or wellness workshops? The goal here is to find out which health needs you can provide; in budget, and the possible returns you can get by providing such benefit; such as less attrition, increased sales, and less sick leaves.

• Establish a communication plan

Reinforcement is important to establish the importance of wellness in your company’s culture. In order to achieve this, you will need to create a communication plan, which outlines the framework of the program and the different ways to relay the information to your people. This way, everyone will know that you are offering such benefits and what you plan to achieve by offering them.

• Come up with an incentive plan

If you really want to see change, then you need to reward the employees who are making an effort to be healthy. It has been proven that this is one of the quickest ways to get the results you want, especially if some of your employees can’t find time for such programs. Yes, the main reason for having a wellness program is to make your employees healthier, but you can’t excite everyone just by saying they’re going to be healthier. In most cases, a wellness program has to be coupled with another reward to get things going. You have to admit, even if an individual wants to stay healthy, sometimes it is easier said than done, so rewards will certainly help.

Employee wellness should be taken seriously, after all; you have invested money in training them. By following these pointers, you can execute an effective wellness program that your employees can follow throughout the year. Remember, the healthier your people are, the better the outcome you can expect.

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