Creating a lasting wellness culture in your company is not easy: it will take time, money, and commitment. But the benefits are worth the investment. In this article, you’ll learn how to create such a culture and why it’s so important for your business’s success.
- Do the Leaders Believe in Wellness?
You might think that your employees will get behind a wellness program if you provide them with incentives. But the truth is that they’ll be much more likely to support it when they believe in its value and benefit to themselves and their families.
How do you ensure that your senior leadership team believes in wellness? Here’s how:
- Make them advocates
- Get them involved
- Measure their level of commitment to wellness
- Recognize the Connection Between Physical and Financial Health
It is important to build a strategy built on the connection between all aspects of wellness. A healthy workforce is an effective and content workforce. But it is important to help people understand that being physically active can help them be more productive at work, and also just be healthier overall.
- Build a Stronger Case for Your Company-Wide Wellness Program
You won’t succeed in creating a lasting wellness culture without hard data showing the benefits of employee health. It will take time to create the data, but it’s well worth the effort.
Here are some steps that you can take to help build a strong case for your company-wide wellness program:
- Start with baseline demographics and fitness level measurements
- Use benchmarking to compare employees’ profiles against similar companies and industries
- Prove your program’s effectiveness in improving health and reducing health care costs
- Offer an Integrated Wellness Program
Employers are more likely to offer wellness benefits that appeal to all aspects of employee well-being, rather than only focusing on one aspect (such as stress management) or certain groups of employees (such as managers).
Make sure that your program offers a wide range of options so that you’ll appeal to as many employees’ needs and interests as possible.
- Measure Your Program’s Impact Regularly
Measurement is the key to understanding how well your program is meeting your goals, including employee participation, attitudes toward the program, knowledge gained from seminars and workshops, and employee health.