Posted by Corporate Wellness | Posted in Corporate Wellness, Wellness Programs | Posted on 15-02-2011
As organizations today continue to compete in the global economy, cost containment strategies are going to be increasingly important. Controlling the rising cost of employee ill health is becoming a priority for corporate leaders.
The emerging corporate culture in the U.S. is one which has an staff member population centered in health, safety and wellness.
Creating a corporate strategy for wellness and disability management makes good company sense. The following eight-step process ensures a strategic, integrated, needs-driven and results-oriented approach.
The following process works best in businesses with strong leadership and a long-term commitment to staff member health.
1. Identify Your Wellness Program Champion
This individuals should be a leader in your organization and a strong advocate of health. Normally this is a personal who actively pursues his or her own personal quest for optimal health.
The wellness program champion must have the resources and authority to drive the program forward. The program champion’s key role is to ensure the strategic plan for health is aligned with the company’s company objectives, strategic focus and organizational values.
For example if the business promotes that “our strength is our people ” the wellness program must demonstrate how programs will nurture and protect that valuable resource.
2. Form Your Wellness Strategy Team
The Wellness Strategy Team should include decision makers and stakeholders from areas of the company that can influence health and the company’s bottom line.
These areas could include; finance, human resources, training and development, health services, compensation and benefits, employee assistance services (EAP), marketing and advertising, facilities, health and safety, rehabilitation, cafeteria or food services and the union. A team of six to eight representatives is advised.
The role of the Strategy Team is to develop and implement the strategic plan, look for opportunities to promote health, ensure the health promotion program is integrated into key areas of the business, streamline efforts, maximize business resources and health promotion program evaluation.
3. Complete an Organizational Health Audit
The purpose of an Organizational Health Audit is to evaluate your existing health promotion programs and services, physical environment and policies and procedures that support health.
It is also crucial that you look at your organizational culture or “how things are done” around the business.
Members of the Strategy Team complete the Audit independently and then meet to discuss their evaluation. During the evaluation process, health issues and opportunities are discussed in preparation for the development of the strategic plan.
4. Analyze Your Corporation’s Cost Pressures
Cost pressures are identified by assessing a number of areas including; benefit costs, Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) claims, drug usage, type of paramedic claims, absenteeism data and employee assistance program utilization.
This process assists to target areas that may be positively impacted by a wellness program and to provide a baseline for assessing change.
5. Conduct a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) or Staff Member Needs and Interest Survey
The next step is to determine your employee’s health risks, interests and readiness to change. A confidential health risk appraisal can accomplish many goals.
It provides a baseline from which to measure personal lifestyle changes, provides workers with relevant health information, arouses workers to take charge of their health and helps in health promotion program planning.
Most health risk assessments provide individual reports and a corporate report identifying high-risk areas in the company.
A lot of companies prefer to administer personalized needs and interest survey to evaluate worker needs. The advantage of this approach is that the company can gather information on the employees’ perceived wellness program needs and interests.
This information may be incorporated into the strategic plan. Administering a recent survey also has the added advantage of fostering a sense of worker ownership to the health promotion program.
6. Develop Your Strategic Plan for Wellness
The strategic plan should incorporate information gathered from the Organizational Health Audit, your corporation’s cost pressures, and health risk appraisal data or worker survey results.
The strategic plan should include your health promotion program mission, three or four objectives and several health promotion programs under each objective. The strategic plan provides a framework to encourage, support and evaluate “best health practices.”
It is also important that the plan align itself with the vision, objectives and objectives of the business.
The sample strategic plan that follows was created for blue jeans maker Levi Strauss and Co. (Canada) Inc. Levi Strauss and Co.’s mission statement and aspirations (how staff interact with each other in a company environment) guided the development of the plan.
Levi Strauss and Co.’s aspirations include the following statement – Above all, we want satisfaction from accomplishments and friendships, balanced personal and professional lives, and to have fun in our endeavors.
The wellness program plan included a number of components to ensure that it embraced this statement including the following -
1. A vision statement, which tied in with the corporation’s aspirations.
2. An incentive system to encourage and reward the accomplishment of healthful milestones.
3. A recognition system to applaud success.
4. Friendly competitions between Levi Strauss and Co. locations to ensure a fun environment.
5. Opportunities to participate in small group educational wellness programs to foster team support.
6. Initiation of support groups for staff members completing wellness programs (i.e. tobacco use control support group).
7. Programs dealing with work and family balance.
Other information that was investigated and used to create the plan included -
1. Corporation demographics
2. Focus groups
3. Cultural audit
4. Top drug report
5. employee assistance program utilization
6. Worker benefit services report
7. Health and dental claims
8. Operational performance summaries
9. Health risk appraisals
7. Pull together a Company Case to Support Your Plan
Your business case for wellness provides the necessary details for approval at the executive management level. The business case includes -
1. The Strategic Plan for Health
2. A proposed health promotion program budget
3. Marketing strategies
4. Program leadership options
5. An implementation plan
6. Examination methodology.
In presenting the strategic plan it’s crucial that you highlight how the plan aligns itself with the strategic direction of the corporation.
The health promotion program budget ought to include educational resources, marketing and advertising costs, rewards and incentives, leadership costs and supplies.
Marketing strategies should address how the wellness program are going to be promoted and rolled out to various groups within the business i.e. decentralized locations, high risk workers, older workers.
Program leadership should address how volunteers will be used, internal resources and whether consultants have been proposed. All play an equally important role in the implementation of your health promotion program.
The wellness program implementation plan should incorporate the following kinds of programs that help create awareness of positive health practices, assist workforce in making lifestyle changes and initiatives, which support long-term change.
Awareness health promotion programs develop an awareness of the importance of healthful lifestyle practices and motivate workers to take the next step. Examples of awareness health promotion programs include posting educational posters, newsletter articles and brown bagger seminars.
Lifestyle change wellness programs are more comprehensive and longer in duration. They are designed to assist staff in changing behavior. Examples of lifestyle change wellness programs are nutrition education programs, stress management programs, back care classes and use of tobacco control programs.
A supportive corporate environment encompasses everything from corporate policies and procedures, the physical environment and building a corporate culture that supports good health practices. Follow-up sessions and support groups for staff members that have completed 6-10 week wellness programs also provide a supportive environment for long-term change.
Assessing the effectiveness of wellness is ongoing. A formal examination must be conducted each year and may include; re-administering steps three to five, wellness program participation statistics and a year end survey to revisit “soft” issues like morale, wellness program satisfaction and future wellness program direction.
8. Solicit Input and Communicate Your Plan
Worker input is vital to the long-term success of your wellness program. An Worker Advisory Committee must be formed to roll out the plan. Another key responsibility of this team is to solicit feedback from all levels of the organization to ensure buy-in.
Front line Manager’s Information Sessions and focus groups are also important. This group needs to buy-in to the notion that they play a key role in supporting positive health practices.
Regular meetings are advised with front line managers to receive ongoing input, address issues and orient new managers.
Conclusions
The World Health Corporation’s definition of health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of illness and infirmity.”
In order for us to create healthful worksites, health promotion programs need to have have a health promotion program champion, have worker ownership, be upper-level management supported, results driven and strategically aligned with the overall company goals of the company.
Wellness program that embrace these qualities will have a positive impact on an company’s bottom line. Canadian research points to many case studies where on-site wellness programs have resulted in reduced absenteeism, lower claims and increased productivity.
Organizations who’ve embraced wellness as part of “how they do business” have one thing in common. They demonstrate a commitment to their most valuable resource â.” their people .
They understand the increased pressures associated with downsized organizations, a rapidly changing worksite, an aging work force and the challenge of balancing work and family obligations. And they share a common belief that healthy employees are happier, absent less and more productive.
References -
Design of Wellness Programs by Michael P. O’Donnell. 1995. Published by the American Journal of Wellness.
Pro Fit-ability by Veronica Marsden. Group Healthcare Management. May 1997.
Meeting Expectations by Laura Mensch. Staff Member Health and Productivity. August 1999
7 Steps to Health Promotion by Daphne Woolf and Veronica Marsden. Group Health Care Management. February 1996.
Published in the Journal of Wellness for Northern Ireland, Issue 9, March 2000