How to Select Healthy Lifestyle Programs for Corporate Wellness

 

In our previous post, you were taught how to complete the two most important steps towards creating an effective wellness campaign:

• You have identified the employee needs
• You have created your purposes and goals for the company

These are your background tools that will help you find the right path for your overall vision. Using the data and your objective elements found at each site, you will be able to target the health risks of the company and create a plan that will help to address each of those issues.

Here is where you need to start selecting the right healthy lifestyle programs for the company. The programs will be based on the results of assessments, surveys, and input from the organization.

The programs you select are important. Each program you choose is an investment, both in time and in finances. They need to address the primary needs of the company in a way that will help improve overall wellness from top to bottom.

Before we look at how to select the best programs for the company, let’s look at what these programs typically address.

Types of Programs Available

Corporate wellness coaches deal with a number of different wellness concerns. According to a 1999 survey, the most common programs provided by corporate wellness experts fell under the following categories:

• Exercise/Physical Fitness
• Quit Smoking Campaigns
• Stress Management
• Back Pain Relief
• Nutrition

From there, corporate wellness coaches address issues like high blood pressure, accidents both on and off the job, cholesterol, weight control, mental health, STDs, prenatal education, and substance abuse, though you may find that your data doesn’t support any of those specific categories and that additional programs are beneficial for the workplace. It depends largely on how you structure your HRA questions.

The key is to use what you will learn as a corporate wellness coach, your experience, and your data to find out what makes the best sense in terms of establishing in the company.

What Makes a Successful Health and Wellness Program?

WELCOA lists the following as the most important tools for a successful program:

• Strong senior and mid-level management support
• Behaviorally sophisticated programming
• Positive and upbeat image
• Well-designed and balanced programming
• Well-paced programming
• Effective use of incentives

Management Support

Getting support of management is perhaps the most important tip for choosing a successful program. It doesn’t matter if you have science on your side – without the support of the entire management staff, from senior to mid-level management, your program is going to suffer. Their support of the program will permeate throughout the company, and their support is also necessary if you hope to get contract time and funding.

Behaviorally Sophisticated Programming

When you choose your wellness programs as a corporate wellness coach, you need to always be certain that you are choosing programs that are known to get results. That means that your programs must not only be scientifically validated, but they also must have rewards built in for employees to keep them behaviorally motivated to continue to make those changes.

Positive and Upbeat Image

Much of your programs will have a physical focus. But wellness is also about attitude and energy. All of your programs and how you initiate them must contain a positive and upbeat image that is conducive to long term success. Negativity and cynicism lead to poor performance and fewer changes. You will be the one marketing the programs to the employees, and you should do your best to keep the image supportive and uplifting. This can be challenging in the face of some of the more obvious health problems seen in business settings.

Well Designed, Balanced Programming

Your programs need to have the following:

• They need to be well planned and monitored, with obstacles ready to be noticed and addressed.
• They need to contain everything that makes a successful program, including great communication, targets and measurement.

Every aspect of your programming should keep both the short and long term goals in mind, and balance them out to create an overall wellness program that will bring the best results to the company.

Well-Paced Programming

When you work as a corporate wellness coach, your pace is very important. You need to make the right balance between speed and realism. Ideally you want to see changes as quickly as possible, but quick changes are unlikely. So your program should be paced in a way that is best for the employees.

In addition, your programs need to have a good balance and coincide with a realistic timeline seasonally. You do not want to have a large number of programs overlap at once, nor do you want to schedule exercise programs that require warm weather during the coldest times of the year. Your pace is an important part of the program’s success.

Effective Use of Incentives

Wellness is a long-term goal. As you work towards achieving workplace wellness, you will find that employees leave the company and join the company, staff gets promoted or laid off, and staff gets motivated to continue or loses motivation entirely.

Incentives are the best way to keep everyone actively involved. Discounts, gifts, prizes and more can all be used to keep employees involved in the program and give them incentive to continue. Make sure you are using incentives in a way that keeps the maximum amount of people motivated to adopting these wellness ideas.

Make Informed Decisions with Careful Planning

The best way to make sure that your programs are going to be successful is to carefully plan each aspect of the programs with ideas that have scientific evidence for success. Make sure that your choices are supported by the wellness committee and management, and design strategies for implementing the programs that keep the company motivated and active in the campaign.

Things to Consider Before Choosing Your Program

Before you create your corporate wellness program you need to take into consideration all of the factors that are already present in the workplace, and possible problems that can arise. Factors include:

•  Current Policies – Policies are the easiest to change, but may also be met with greatest resistance, especially if the policies are being abused. These may be the easiest for you to change, but should be well planned, marketed to the employees, and provided in a way that addresses their concerns.
• Current Practices – It’s easiest to work with established practices, but established practices may not be ideal. Your programs should integrate as seamlessly as possible with anything currently in place and the practices of the company.
• Cost Considerations – You have to balance the financial abilities with the company with what is best for the company. Don’t forget to make considerations for the short and long term. Buying fitness equipment may be more financially sound at present, but maintenance may not be something the company can afford long term, etc.
• Legal Issues – You need to make sure that your programs are legally compliant. You may need to consult with the company’s lawyer, and possibly their healthcare provider, to ensure that what you are putting in place is compliant with any legal issues that may arise.
• Company Support – All of your programs must have the support of management personnel and your wellness committee. Company support is crucial for keeping the programs running and motivating employees to take advantage of your programs.

Finding Partnerships

Another thing you will want to consider is finding partnerships with nearby companies that can help with company wellness. For example, if there is a nearby gym you could work together to see if there can be a group discount for your company, or if you can utilize a physical fitness trainer onsite on occasion to help meet with employees individually.

Examples of How to Select a Program

As a corporate wellness coach, available programs are constantly changing, and are affected by the health state of each company. For example, the American Health Association recommends that a cardiovascular corporate wellness program include the following:

• Tobacco cessation and prevention
• Regular physical activity
• Stress management/reduction
• Early detection/screening
• Nutrition education and promotion
• Weight management
• Disease management
• Changes in the work environment to encourage healthy behaviors and promote occupational safety and health

Programs that are designed to include all of the above must have educational components, fitness components, policy change components, and medical care.

To start, take an inventory of current resources and the resources necessary to put an activity into place. Changing policies is typically low resources. Providing a few basic fitness machines would take medium resources. Creating an entire health and fitness center would take a high level of resources.

Break down your recommended options for how to attack cardiovascular health. Then use the sheet to see which activities are best to implement first. Ask yourself how important the activity is, how much it will cost, how much time it will take, what the returns will be, and how much each option appears like it will be met with interest by the employees.

Let’s say the company has limited space and enough money to make some investments and policy changes immediately, but it will take a while before they can make considerable financial commitment. Then perhaps your program can have the company institute the following:

• Change policy to remove designated smoke rooms in order to turn the workplace into a non-smoking workplace. Provide helpful quit smoking literature and encourage smoking employees to enroll in a local quit smoking campaign. Work with the campaign for a discounted rate. Also, remove designated outdoor smoking areas and cut smoke breaks so that employees are encouraged to stop smoking altogether.
• Engage in empirically studied non-smoking interventions involving education and behavior modification therapy.
• Clean smoke rooms and fill them with treadmills and exercise bikes that are available for staff on their lunch breaks.
• Provide incentives to employees that bike to work. Reward employees that bike X days a week with points that can be turned in for gift cards. Provide employees that live too far away with alternative reward programs.
• Replace high cholesterol vending machine food with a healthy alternative, or work with a local health food store to provide discounts or specials for employees of the company.
• Encourage all employees to use stairs instead of the elevator.
• Begin anonymous sessions with a counselor for employees to go over job strain and problems that contribute to greater workplace stress. Have impartial mediator find new ways to promote better stress management by the employees. Make policy changes where necessary.

Your programs will be based both on empirical data regarding the success of various program models, your own individual philosophies about what you believe to be the best programs available, as well as what the company can and will support when it comes to your wellness plans.

Note on Choices

One thing that is important to note before you make your choices is that the key to making good choices with your wellness campaigns is that you create programs that are available to all employees that want to enjoy them.

In some cases, not all employees can take advantage of them, such as in the case of quit smoking campaigns, but you must remember that these are programs for the company, not programs targeted at any specific individual. Everything should be accessible for the entire group, and everyone should be able to have a chance to be rewarded.

Keep that in mind as you look through your available options. Programs should be accessible by people of all ages, social classes, and health. Sometimes that will require you to change incentives in order to find rewards for those that are already of good health but remember that all employees need to stay focused on their wellness, even the healthiest of the staff. Make sure that your choices are such that they incorporate activities for all ages, health statuses, disease risk, etc.

Things That May Affect Your Choices

You are going to come across many different types of situations at the companies you work with. You must remember that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach to wellness.

When you are looking at what types of programs to use, remember that demographics and company lifestyles play a role. Pay attention to things like:

• Gender
• Shifts
• Number of Worksites
• Marital Status
• Obesity Level

There are any number of factors that may affect what programs you choose. Female dominated workplaces, for example, may benefit more from the types of activities that women are traditionally interested in, rather than the types of activities that – although they may benefit both genders – may turn women off from participating.

The key is to choose programs that can and will be utilized by the most employees at the company. The statistics of that company will affect what programs are going to work, and how well.

Types of Wellness Programs

There are several different types of wellness programs for you to consider when you select your programs. There are three generic options that these wellness campaigns will fall under:

• Quality of Worklife Programs
• Traditional/Conventional ProgramsHealth and Productivity Management Programs

Each of these programs affect different levels of wellness have different costs, and depend a great deal on the budget, the time, and the commitment of the company.

Quality of Worklife Programs

Quality of Worklife programs, sometimes referred to as QWL, is wellness designed to improve the morale of each individual employee. The idea is that your program will help the company work better together as a whole, becoming one entity rather than a group of individuals.

QWL programs in many ways are about mental health. Except these programs are not designed to improve physical wellness (the way that mental health programs are usually designed to do). Rather, this is about providing employees with fun and exciting activities that make them happy to come into work every day. Activities that allow employees to enjoy each other’s company and get along well like friends in the workplace.

The key here is to find fun and enjoyable programs that are not necessarily going to create sweeping physical changes to each employee but are going to help employees find work itself to be a more pleasurable experience.

Why QWL Programs?

Although QWL programs may not be as physically intense as other types of wellness programs, they do provide companies with a number of strategies that make them beneficial for the company.

The two main benefits of using a QWL program is that they are generally very low cost to implement and can improve the happiness level of the employees (which is known to increase productivity, reduce turnover, and make employees more receptive to employer needs).

QWL programs can take as little as a few weeks to prepare and may cost nothing more than time and some moderate financial resources at worst in order to plan a fun and interesting event. There is also very little health or legal risk in enjoying these activities. Finally, QWL programs are broad enough that all employees can participate. That makes them ideal for improving company-wide wellness culture.

Many studies have confirmed that when the employee feels as though they are truly a part of the workplace, they put more effort into making it a healthy culture with considerable productivity.

How Does QWL Work?

QWL programs should be 100% voluntary (with the exception of policy changes, which can and should occur in all types of wellness programs). However, recall that these programs are not designed to educate or encourage staff to do any unwanted physical activity. These are simply designed to be fun activities that employees will want to engage in. Thus even though they are voluntary, a fairly moderate turnout is expected because employees should find these programs to be fairly enjoyable.

QWL programs also require no incentives, because the act of attending these programs is the incentive. If you choose to use these programs as a corporate wellness coach, that means you do have to make sure that the activities are something that employees will genuinely find enjoyable – not something that will be enjoyable to only a select few.

QWL programs do need to focus on wellness. Meaning, if you choose to use one of these programs, you should not set a theme that discourages a healthy lifestyle. One of the benefits of using QWL programs is that they can get the company excited about the idea of creating a wellness environment.

QWL program ideas include:

• Wellness Events – Wellness events are programs that introduce employees to traditional and health management programs in a fun way. For example, if you help open up a gym within the office place, then a wellness event will find fun activities to do in and around the gym, in order to get the employees excited about the company’s vision.
• Healthy Food Pot Luck – A nutritionally focused pot luck is another good example of a QWL program. The pot luck represents a quality bonding opportunity for employees, while the focus on healthy food ensures that wellness becomes a topic of discussion within the company. This is where the Certified Personal Fitness Chef can be helpful.
• Healthy Snacks – Another QWL option is a day dedicated to supplying all employees with food and their daily meal, and doing so by providing them with healthy lunches and snacks, complete with any necessary wellness information.
• Learning Sessions – Another option you can use as a corporate wellness coach is a learning session that takes place during an enjoyable event, like a group lunch. Supply all staff members with a free, healthy lunch that they can enjoy together. While there, set up booths about healthy eating or have someone begin a wellness discussion or speech while the employees sit down to enjoy their free meal.
• Community Outreach – Not all QWL programs have to involve a wellness component. QWL programs are also designed to improve the relationship of the employees with the company. So you can organize volunteer opportunities that allow the company to come together as a whole in order to help non-profit companies with things like fundraising, home building, etc.
• Fun Games – You can also simply organize fun team building games that allow the company to show a commitment to its employees. Games that involve the outdoors and some type of movement have an inherent athletic/wellness component and also build a sense of community within the company.

The above list represents just small number of the types of Quality of Worklife Programs you can encourage as a corporate wellness coach. The key here is to simply focus on fun, and allow any wellness component to be important but secondary.

Downsides of QWL Programs

Although QWL programs have been proven to be valuable for improving productivity and contentment in the workplace, they are not the perfect program.

Because physical wellness is not the primary goal, sweeping wellness changes throughout the company are unlikely. The success of these programs is also difficult – if not impossible – to measure, because it mostly focuses on subjective enjoyment rather than objective enjoyment.

There are also no direct behavioral components, so the financial returns of these programs is minimal. Financial returns have been found, but the rate of return is low.

Final Thoughts on QWL

It should be noted that even though the tangible benefits of providing QWL programs is low, there are several subjective benefits, and QWL programs may still benefit companies in less measurable ways, such as improved communication between coworkers and less turnover. It also may make them more receptive to other wellness programs and more willing to accept a culture of wellness within the company.

QWL programs may not provide the financial return as some of these other programs, but they are easy to implement and have been proven to be beneficial for many companies.

Traditional/Conventional Programs

Unlike QWL programs, traditional programs are where wellness becomes the primary focus. The idea behind this program is that you create a number of wellness options that employees can use in order to improve their overall health and wellness.

These are the types of programs that use the data you collected with your health risk assessment and employee interest surveys. Using that data, you’ll target the specific programs necessary to help improve overall wellness in the workplace and gain greater financial results for the company.

Like QWL programs, traditional programs are voluntary except for policy changes. They usually involve putting the programs on site and use incentives to try to convince employees to take advantage of wellness campaigns.

Why Traditional Programs?

The primary benefit of traditional programs is that they are data driven to support the health and wellness of the specific risks that you found when you conducted your research. As a corporate wellness coach, this approach to wellness is also much easier to implement and requires less funding than health and productivity management programs, while still addressing the employees’ greatest needs.

Employees will need to motivate themselves to take advantage of these programs, which can make them a little difficult, but they do achieve measurable results. Monitoring the success of these programs is also much easier because you can evaluate their effects using follow up health risk assessments. As the name implies, traditional programs are the most common type of comprehensive wellness program that you may want to use.

How Do Traditional/Conventional Programs Work?

Choosing the types of programs to use depends primarily on your data. Collecting health data on employees will provide you with the best possible areas to target.

Traditional programs are going to be common. Setting up gym memberships is a great example of a traditional program. Attending the gym is not mandatory, but it presumably addresses a high-risk need (obesity/lack of physical fitness) and the hope is that it is used regularly by those that need it.

Education also plays a large role, since they are also easy to implement and not mandatory. You will use a lot of these types of programs for companies, because they are easier for most companies to implement.

Traditional program ideas include:

• Creating More Healthy Food Options – Making more healthy food options available in the cafeteria and/or switching the vending machines to healthier food options are common. They allow employees to choose to each healthier without forcing them to.
• Fitness Clubs/Gym Memberships – Another options at your disposal, and perhaps one of the most common options for corporate wellness coaches, is for you to supply the employees with no cost or discounted fitness club/gym options. You can give them a generic gym option or provide them with a more specific training type, like Group Exercise or Boot Camp.
• Educational Seminars – Optional seminars are another type of traditional option. Wellness seminars can focus on any of the health risk areas that you identified in your data collection.
• Greater Preventative Medical Options – You can work with the company and their insurance agency to see if they are willing to offer better preventive care options to encourage early detection.
• Newsletters and Pamphlets – Distributing wellness newsletters and pamphlets is an inexpensive and easy way to support wellness in the workplace.
• Behavioral Change Intervention Programs – Another option is to have intervention programs that focus on different types of behavioral training, and to supply rewards. For example, provide incentives for jogging X amount of days every week.

These types of wellness programs are more expensive and take more long term planning than QWL Programs, but they provide more tangible results and do a much better job acting on specific wellness issues. Most of your wellness clients will likely want to use traditional wellness programs.

Downsides of Traditional Wellness Programs

Traditional wellness programs have become conventional because they are generally effective without extensive planning or financial commitment. Their downside is that the non-mandatory quality means that those that need the most help may not be the ones participating in the program. Benefits of using these traditional methods can be considerable, but also may be reduced depending on who takes advantage of the programs.

Final Thoughts on Traditional Programs

There are hundreds of traditional programs available depending on what you find to be the needs of the company being serviced. These programs are far more effective than QWL programs, but their benefits can be minimized by who participates. Marketing is going to be important for these programs and your incentives will need to motivate those that need the wellness programs the most.

Health and Productivity Management Programs

Both previous types of programs are voluntary. Employees can and should use the programs, but how much each of those programs benefit the company depends on who chooses to use them. If they are mostly used by the fit and low health risk employees, benefits will be minimized. If they are used by those with serious health risk, the benefits will be much greater.

Health and productivity management programs don’t suffer as much from that problem because they are mandatory, all-inclusive programs aimed at the health risks you found in your data. These programs cost considerably more to implement, but their benefits are far more “guaranteed,” in that those that require the health interventions will be far more likely to use them, which should benefit the company.

Here is also where you will use your most state-of-the-art intervention tools. You will want your programs to be the most well researched and effective programs for any of the health risks you are trying to target. Health and productivity management programs cost much more – enough that they may not be feasible for all companies depending on budget, space, and the number of employees. But if you work with a company that supports using these types of programs, they are much more comprehensive and should provide the most noticeable results.

Why Use Health Management Programs?

The key here is to give the company measurable, tangible benefits. These interventions are structured, with incentives that encourage participation. The strategies you will use as a corporate wellness coach should be based on sound scientific theories, with particular attention paid to specific behavioral change.

Your data is especially important. Because the cost is higher, it becomes even more important for you to target the most important health risks. However, the benefits of doing so can be profound, because economic return is far more likely and wellness is far more comprehensive.

How Do Health Management Programs Work?

Many aspects of health management programs need to be mandatory. There may be legal issues (and health issues) that prevent companies from requiring all employees to participate in every aspect of the program, core incentive programs, surveys, enrollment meetings and more can be made a part of the individual’s job description.

Health management programs also focus far more than traditional programs on health, rather than just overall wellness. Clinical health risks are what drive these programs, and behavioral change should be at the heart of each of your program’s components. Family members also play a large role in this program’s success.

Throughout these types of programs, analysis and re-evaluation is vital. Programs will not only need to show progress for the employees, but also to continue to receive support from the company.

Examples of health management programs include:

•  HRA Targeted Interventions – Rather than just be used for interventions, you can use HRAs to create targeted programs for those that are either health risks or engage in risky health behaviors.
• Benefit Based Incentive Programs – Supplying considerable financial incentive if the employees complete various wellness changes is also a major part of this type of program. The more the employee commits to healthy lifestyle behaviors (like lowering their cholesterol, increasing their physical activity, etc.), the more they receive.
• Testing – Offering periodic body fat testing and nutritional testing is always an option, with one- on-one time with a licensed expert to see what might improve their lipid profile.
• Wellness Achievements – Similar to benefit-based incentive programs, employees can have companywide wellness goals that employees are rewarded for reaching.
• Services Available – Health management programs often add services to what is available at the company. Sometimes these services are more generic, like massage therapy, while other times they can include more in depth services like financial planning.

The idea behind all of these programs is direct, behavioral interventions for the health issues that affect the company the most.

Downsides of the Health Management Approach

Programs like this are costly, and not only in terms of money. They also take a lot of commitment, planning, and time. There are occasionally legal hurdles that need to be addressed and the programs can occasionally require changes in the way businesses operate or function as well.

Final Thoughts on Health Management Programs

These are by far the most effective programs, and as a corporate wellness coach you should always be pushing for integration of some type of these programs into the corporate setting. But the cost and the hurdles may turn some companies off, despite the benefits.

Choosing Between the Three Wellness Types

You will have to work with the company to see what they are willing to put into action and what they can afford.

Companies that do not have the budget may appreciate using a QWL program, which is generally inexpensive, builds camaraderie, improves morale, etc. Companies that are more progressive, have the budget, and are looking for more measurable changes may want to go the health management route.

Other factors come into play, like how important the program is to implement and what kinds of changes you can expect. There are thousands of possible programs for you to select. Your corporate wellness coaching knowledge, skills, and education will help you work with the company to choose the right ones for the company.

7 Tips for Choosing the Right Programs

Now that you understand the basics of corporate wellness, it is time to look at how to decide whether a program is right for the company. Here are seven tips for deciding which interventions to choose:

1. Does the Intervention Meet an Objective?

Any intervention you choose should be designed to meet the objectives that you have defined after you collected your data. Make sure that you pay special attention to any of the measurable objectives that you may need to use to justify your programs and your program budget later. You may find as a corporate wellness coach that you are tempted to use a program that you know works well, but it may not meet any of the objectives you agreed upon with the company and with your wellness team. When that is the case, you may need to pick a different program instead.

2. How Many Employees Will Benefit?

Depending on your budget, you may have to be very selective with the programs you choose. As you consider which programs you like most, look to see what numbers you are dealing with in terms of how many people will benefit within the company. Always remember that a less serious problem that – if addressed – will benefit more people may be more beneficial than a more serious problem that affects fewer people, at least in terms of how much of your resources you should use to fund it.

3. What Will Be the Cost of the Program?

Many coaches find their budget to be extremely limited, especially in the beginning when the programs are first getting introduced. If that is the case, you may not want to implement a single program that consumes most of your budget, otherwise you will be left with less money to address other needs.

4. How Easy Will the Program Be to Evaluate?

Evaluation is a core component of good corporate wellness coaching. If you cannot effectively evaluate your efforts with your wellness program – or if evaluation may be more expensive than you can afford – you may want to decide on an intervention that requires less finances, and one that will be easier to justify mathematically when you finish your evaluation.

5. How Easy Will the Intervention Be to Market?

A large part of your job is going to be promoting your programs throughout the workplace. When you have completed your interest surveys and explored the company culture, you may find that it becomes difficult to initiate the program and even more difficult to market it to the employees that are most in need. In that case you may want to look elsewhere.

6. How “Guaranteed” Are the Results?

You will find that there is no such thing as a guaranteed outcome. People are too unpredictable, and any intervention can struggle. However, many programs have had scientific, anecdotal, and case study evidence that suggest that they work. Depending on your objectives – especially those objectives that you and the company have decided are the keys to a successful program – you may want to try a more well recognized type of wellness program over an experimental one that looks promising but has not yet been verified to work.

7. What Will Be the ROI?

Even though the wellness of employees plays a large role in which interventions you choose as a corporate wellness coach, the company’s return on investment should always be in the back of your mind. You may find that an intervention that only provides 75% of the benefits of another program may still be a better choice if the investment is 10% of the cost. Marginal upgrades, especially on a tight budget, may not be in the best interest of the company.

Final Thoughts on Selecting Programs

Careful selection of your programs is vital for success. As easy as it is to “like” a program and want to use it within any company you find, the truth is that each company has its own specific needs. Programs that work at one company, however effectively, may not work at another, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to wellness. Make sure that you always refer to your data, gauge the interest level of the company, and make sure that the programs are choosing are the most effective based on everything you know about the company and its employees.

Here are professional training courses related to this topic:
Corporate Wellness Coach Certification
Master Health and Wellness Coach Certification
Wellness Coach Certification
Integrative Health Coach Certification