Starting a Health Promotion Program.
Create a culture of wellness within your corporation
Develop Exemplary Management Support
In the most successful Wellness Programs, upper managers lead their corporations by example. And they work to ensure that the executive management structure not only allows, but actively encourages their workforce to participate.
Organize a Health Promotion Advisory Team
Health Promotion committees serve as the eyes, ears, arms and legs of the health promotion program, representing colleagues ideas and concerns, and helping reshape the organizational culture toward health.
Conduct an Assessment of Financial and Human Assets and Liabilities
Successful Health Promotion Programs are built upon a foundation of information, including claims review, demographic analysis of the workforce, upper management and worker surveys, health risk data, history of organizational wellness, and health benefit plan design.
Develop Obviously Stated Vision, Mission and Outcomes
Establish a clear vision of wellness program direction, expectations and measures to answer the questions, “Where are we going and how will we know when we get there?”
Create a Comprehensive and Strategic Wellness Program
A multi-component plan should consist of strategically developed and implemented awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment programs, as well as policies and activities that target appropriate health risk behaviors and needs of the employees.
Identify an Incentive and Reward Strategy
Incentives show the organizational commitment to the health promotion program and motivate person to participate. Incentives vary commonly from program to program, but can include such things as time off, reduction in health insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to health and fitness centers, free pedometers, etc.
Communicate to Employees
Your wellness program must be simple and concise, use an identifiable brand, and rely on a variety of media to communicate with staff members and managers.
Evaluate Outcomes
Evaluate wellness program participation, satisfaction levels and behavioral change. You may want to track the number of workers’ compensation claims, productivity, turnover morale and absenteeism.
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Health Promotion Program – Management Support.
Develop Exemplary Management Support
Goal – A Wellness Program established into the organization’s culture.
Focus – Develop support and excitement for the health promotion program from all levels of the corporation – upper-level management, mid-level management, and grass-roots staff.
Obtaining upper management’s buy-in is essential to launching an effective wellness program. The personnel must understand that upper management is supportive of the wellness program.
Actions -
Develop an Senior Management Executive Team to determine high-level decisions â.” positions that must be included are the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Communications Officer, and other appropriate division-level managers and health promotion program specialists, as necessary.
The Senior Level Management Executive Team will -
o Communicate to all levels of senior management about the health promotion program and drive the integration of the Wellness Program as a part of the corporation culture.
o Ensure that organizational resources are available for health promotion program planning and implementation.
o Be certain to encourage employees to participate and to assist in “recruiting” other employees, get the momentum going, and keep it growing.
o Share success stories within the organization, and continue to elevate the perceived value of participation.
Organize a Wellness Advisory Team
Goal – Create a working committee that consists of staff members and essential functional parts of the company.
Focus – to assist in reshaping the organizational culture to support employee-wellness activities by serving as heralds and supporters for the health promotion program.
Wellness Advisory Committees serve as an essential part of the infrastructure of your Wellness Program. The team members are the eyes, ears, arms, and legs of the health promotion program.
They represent their colleagues by sharing ideas and concerns about the wellness program.
Actions -
The Wellness Advisory Committee will -
o Be certain to work with senior management and the Wellness Program coordinator in the design, implementation, and examination of the health promotion program.
o Develop methods to enhance the acceptance and success of the activities of your Wellness Program by encouraging worker ownership of the health promotion program.
o Hold periodic meetings to keep the committee informed of upcoming plans and events and to provide feedback to the wellness program coordinator about their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, and those of their peers.
o Recommend policy and environmental changes that are aimed at improving the safety and health of workforce.
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Health Promotion Program – Vision and Mission.
Goal – Create a baseline of information and identify human and organizational needs.
Focus – Review a variety of information to better understand past and current conditions regarding health care utilization, organizational culture, demographic overview, and health promotion programs.
Data collection plays an important role in planning, monitoring, and evaluating a wellness program. It’ll also set the baseline for continued and future investigations of wellness program efficiency, effectiveness, and feasibility.
Actions -
o Claims review (health care, pharmaceutical) -
o What have been the 10 most expensive major disease categories in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars paid for each?
o What have been the 10 most costly therapeutic classes of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars compensated for each?
o What have been the 10 most frequently prescribed and filled therapeutic classes of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars compensated for each?
o Demographic analysis of worker population (may include dependents) -
o List your number of workers, by gender, for each of the past five years and the percentages of males and females by age groups.
o Think about any other factors that may have affected the health of your workers and their use of the healthcare system.
This could include mergers, acquisitions, workplace trauma, worker strikes, layoffs, early retirement offers, etc.
Management survey -
o Conduct surveys of mid-level management to understand their concerns and measure their level of interest and buy-in.
o Employee-interest survey – Gather information to find out what the staff want and to measure the level of participation, satisfaction, and “success” of any previous activities.
Risk data (health-risk assessments) -
o Is there any data from health-risk appraisals over the past five years?
Participation in similar activities -
o List and describe all wellness programs that have been implemented over the past five years, including participation rates.
Design of the health plan, and anticipated changes -
o Have there been any significant changes in the health plan’s design in each of the past five years, such as a change from an Health Maintenance Organization to a PPO, increased co-payments or deductibles, or increased employee contributions?
Develop Clearly Announced Vision, Mission and Outcomes
Goal – Establish a clear vision of health promotion program direction, expectations, and measures.
Focus – Establishing a vision, mission, objectives and objectives to keep your Health Promotion Program focused toward its desired outcomes. It will answer the questions, “Where are we going?” and “How’ll we know when we get there?”
Actions -
o Identify two to five obviously reported goals. Make certain that your wellness program is capable of having an impact in the area desired, and make certain that you’re capable of measuring that impact.
Example Goal – Workers having access to healthier food options
o Establish two to five measurable objectives that particularly state what your health promotion program is going to accomplish, by when, how, and how it’ll be measured.
Example Objective – Modify all vending machines to include 50% healthy food choices.
o Identify several activities that will help you reachyour objective. Activities are very specific.
Example Activity – Make sure to work with vending machine owners to identify healthful food options and restock with 50 percent of items that are healthier food options.
o Identify who is going to do what, by when, and what resources are needed.
Example Detail – the Program coordinator will contact XXX Vending Business by September 30.
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Health Promotion Program Incentives.
Develop a Comprehensive and Strategic Health Promotion Program
Goal – A robust Health Promotion Program plan.
Focus – Development of a plan that consists of a variety of awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment program, policies, and activities that’ll target risk behaviors, needs, and interests of staff.
Your Health Promotion Program ought to provide an integrated, strategic approach specific to the needs, goals, and culture of your organization, designed throughout an annual cycle.
It’ll be important to review and revise existing policies governing such areas as use of tobacco, vending machines, and the staff cafeteria. Furthermore, it’s useful to examine what corporate wellness or health-promotion activities are offered under your existing health-benefit plan.
Actions -
o Create activities based on your wellness program goals and the specific needs of your personnel. Focus on those topics that are of greatest interest to your personnel and the greatest needs of your business, in that order. Prevent topics with narrow appeal.
o Keep it simple. Design the health promotion program so it’s easy for the participants to understand and track. Let employees focus their learning efforts on their own behavior, not on the rules and regulations of the health promotion program.
In addition, simplify the health promotion program administration. Let individuals record their own activities when possible; develop a mixture of self-reported activities along with verified activities.
o Integrate a combination of activities to include awareness, educational, and behavior elements. Link the activities throughout the year to allow for desired behavior repetition.
o Select activities that every employee can participate in.
Examples -
o Challenges – Activities that focus on practicing a desired behavior and continue for 4-8 weeks and focus on specific topics (like physical activity, nutrition, or stress management).
o Learning experiences (seminars, videos, classes) – One-time activities that last for a relatively short time and focus on a specific topic; these can precede “challenge activities” to prepare participants for behavior change.
o Behavior changes (like use of tobacco cessation) – Interventions may or might not be offered at the worksite; person should be encouraged to make lifestyle changes that they wanted to make even without the incentive.
o Illness management (support and education groups for diabetes and hypertension) – These could be provided or supported by the company through disease-management providers, or by community, health, or religious organizations.
o New skills (first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation) – These could be provided or supported by the business, or by community, health, or religious organizations.
o Screenings, wellness assessments, physical exams – A wellness assessment provides the company with aggregate data that could be used in health promotion program planning and analysis; preventive screenings and physical exams could be encouraged by awarding credits to employees.
o Program support (membership or leadership in wellness committee or challenge team) – Reward those who work with you to help make your Wellness Program a success.
o Community events – Reward participation in events like the Heart Walk or March of Dimes Walk; limit the number of these events that could be counted toward the annual total, and be selective about which events you allow to be counted.
Create an Incentive Strategy
Goal – to motivate and reward worker participation and completion.
Focus – Develop a sense of interest in participation and completion of wellness activities.
Providing incentives and rewards will send an important message to the workers that the business is committed to improving their health and will share the rewards that these changes will bring. It also plays a meaningful role in arousing person to participate.
Actions -
o Identify through workforce what incentives they value most.
o Identify what incentives the business can provide.
o Integrate your incentives into your benefits strategy.
o Ensure that every participant who achieves a goal receives some recognition.
o Offer participation incentives.
o Avoid offering incentives for the “best” or the “most.”
o Avoid rewards for biometric changes.
o Use incentives to promote your Wellness Program, through logos and branding.
Examples -
Compensated time off, reduction in medical insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to fitness centers, free pedometers, etc.
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Health Promotion Program Communication.
Goal – Increase awareness of and participation in the Health Promotion Program.
Focus – Promote the Wellness Program to workforce to encourage participation in activities and benefits.
A well-designed communications strategy is paramount to successful wellness program awareness and participation. Even a “world class” wellness program design will not succeed if nobody knows that it is available or how to get involved.
Staff Members who do not get involved in the health promotion program must be doing so because they select not to participate, not because they did not know about how, when, or where to participate.
Actions -
o Conduct a Resources and Communications Audit to identify internal and external resources available to support your Health Promotion Program, as well as knowing how information are going to be disseminated.
o Keep the wellness program simple and concise – easy to peruse about, understand, and act upon.
o Build the brand; be sure it’s something that personnel can identify with. Add the brand to T-shirts, water bottles, mouse pads, stress balls, etc.
Use a variety of media -
o Print â.” brochures, fliers, posters, banners, paycheck inserts, newsletter articles, bulletin boards, literature racks, post cards.
o Electronic â.” Web, intranet, e-mail, closed-circuit televisions, sign lines, audiovideo productions.
o Staff meetings and organization events; word of mouth.
o Use existing channels of communication â.” what works best in your company â.” and be sure to know about all points of contact and systems of distribution.
Timing for communications -
o Prior to activity to develop awareness and to educate.
o During activity to stimulate participation.
o After an activity to report results.
o Between activities to maintain momentum and interest.
Consistency of communications -
o Use branding; maintain a consistent look, feel, and tone of messages.
o Maintain this consistency throughout the health promotion program.
Surveys and forms -
o Collect information.
o Disseminate information.
