Let us guess:
Program options are seemingly endless, and, without a map, understanding the solutions and pinpointing what is right for your company can quickly get overwhelming and make you feel lost at sea.
Let’s start from the top.
Why Employee Wellness Programs?
It’s simple: You desire happy, healthy, productive employees because it’s good for them and it’s great for your organization.
Your organization will flourish with happy, healthy, productive employees.
Partnering with the right corporate wellness companies and implementing the right employee wellness programs for your employees means an abundance of benefits:
- Improved employee health and behavior
- Improved employee productivity
- Improved company culture
- Improved employee engagement/morale
- and -
- Lower employer healthcare costs
- Lower employee presenteeism and absenteeism
- Lower employee stress
…and much more.
Keep in mind, the costs associated with implementing and running employee wellness programs are minimal compared to the benefits.
Health & Wellness Program Options and Differentiators
You might not realize that the umbrella of “health and wellness programs” includes an extensive suite of wellness options and activities.
Health and wellness solutions can range from health coaching to on-site massages and everything in between, such as:
- Corporate fitness
- Corporate nutrition
- Biometric screening
- Wellness incentives
- Wellness campaigns
- Weight management
- Stress management
Most corporate wellness companies market their programs as comprehensive, meaning they offer several solutions that can help your company build a better, healthier workforce.
Finding the right employee wellness program for your organization can’t be accomplished by simply reviewing the websites of the various corporate wellness companies out there. Finding a program that will work for your employees starts with taking small steps early on in the process to ensure your program is successful when it launches and in the long term.
How to Select the Best Wellness Program for Your Organization
Once the wellness program is implemented, it should be intertwined with the lives of your employees day in and day out. To do this well, the selection process must consider their unique needs, not just the needs of the organization.
Remember: Happy, healthy, productive employees are the key to the changes you want to see in your organization.
Step One: Assemble an internal team.
Selecting, implementing and overseeing a wellness program is not a one-person job. Instead of placing the responsibility on one person’s or one department’s shoulders (we see you, HR team!), consider creating a dedicated taskforce that will be responsible for overseeing the program details and ensuring it comes to fruition.
This team can be made up of individuals from different departments and with varying levels of experience. With a diverse team spearheading the effort, your program will better represent employee’s needs and will have greater support in the company.
For more specific information on how to build a wellness champion network, download our guide here.
The assembled task force can tackle the rest of the steps:
Step Two: Create and distribute an anonymous survey to garner employee interests, needs and ideas.
Since employees are integral to your program, start by opening the floor to them. Keep it anonymous so everyone feels safe to express ideas, needs and concerns.
This survey can ask questions about:
- Feedback on pre-existing wellness initiatives and ideas for future programs
- Which health and wellness topics they’re most interested in
- What support they need to achieve personal betterment
- How they wish to improve their health
- Their ideal workplace culture
- What they like about your organization
- What they would change about your organization
By assessing your employees’ needs upfront, you can better define your vision and program goals and have increased levels of employee buy-in once it’s time to launch your program.
Step Three: Outline expectations and a vision for your organization’s wellness program.
Your organization will have a better chance of achieving results when you choose a wellness vendor that shares a similar mission, goals and values.
So, what are yours? Before you can align with one of the many corporate wellness companies and design a program, you must establish your wellness mission, values and objectives.
With these pillars in place, you can assess your company’s survey responses side-by-side with your newly founded mission, values and goals, and begin to identify your company’s real needs.
Step Four: Find partners you could see your organization aligning with.
Think of this step as creating a “short list” of ideal partners – perhaps three or four. Once they’re identified, consider starting a conversation with each to get to know them and their programs. Also consider that, if possible, it may be beneficial to unite with a partner that has experience with other companies, industries or organizational structures that are similar to yours.
To narrow down your list, ask questions about their track record for success and how they learn about the organizations they work with to recommend a program design. Make sure that the partner you choose can deliver on your desired program outcomes.
Through continued research, analysis and conversations, you can narrow your short list to down to one – your ideal health and wellness partner.
Step Five: Begin to design your organization’s employee wellness program.
When it comes to health and wellness programs that have staying power and truly help your employees feel better all around, it comes down to configurability.
Regardless of the many options and solutions corporate wellness companies/employee wellness programs can deliver, if it can’t be specifically tailored to your population’s unique set of needs and your company’s goals, then it will fail to fully support in the ways you’re wanting it to.
Additionally, be sure the program you’re designing is results-driven and can produce data on how your workforce is doing, where you need to adjust the program and, overall, what your ROI is.
Last of all, throughout the design process, be sure to regularly assess the program’s practicality and accessibility for your employees.
Once the pieces are in place, it’s time to launch!
Can Bravo Check All Your Boxes & Help Your Workforce Reach Untapped Potential?
At Bravo, our mission is to help companies of all sizes achieve a culture of health and personal betterment, as this is the most important component to employee wellness and sustainable employee benefits.
When you partner with Bravo, your company will receive a configurable employee wellness program that evolves to meet your population’s needs over time.
Best of all, while the program works to inspire your employees to achieve their personal best, it will also help to protect the benefit plans you’ve worked so hard to build.
As a leader in configurable and results-driven employee wellness programs with best-in-class reporting and measurable ROI, we invite you to get to know us and see how we’re helping build healthier, more productive employees with wellness programs that are an extension of an organization’s culture.
Learn how to control rising healthcare costs with a sustainable wellness program. Download our 8 Steps to ROI in Wellness Guide to find out how your organization can control rising healthcare costs, inspire personal improvement to drive down health risks, and attract and retain top talent.
