Health Fairs

Ten Steps Toward Strategic Worksite Health and Wellness Programs

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

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

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

1. Start with senior management. Without senior management support, a health promotion strategy can fall flat. Start with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the organization.
2. Analyze the problem. Look at your medical 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 primary stakeholders both inside and outside the organization. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite primary health vendors including health, disability, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing. Review claims and utilization information and identify primary 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 people who are at risk for developing preventable diseases in the future. Voluntary Worksite Health and Wellness Programs such as lunch & learn wellness seminars miss many of the people who need them most. Look at programs that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but do not motivate everyone.
5. Establish short-term goals for the Worksite Health and Wellness Programs. Establish some realistic short-term goals based on your primary 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. Determine what workers are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where people are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do people have in the Worksite Health and 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 programs. 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 medical 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. Start 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. Start rigorous methods to measure medical 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 staff member turnover rates, cost of new hires, staff member morale, benefit satisfaction information, and employer of choice issues in setting goals. Start ways to measure success in these areas.
10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a Worksite Health and Wellness Program strategy, a communication strategy, and a Worksite Health and 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. Start a budget that includes primary components such as consumer education, health promotion, health risk assessments, and regular biometric screens.