5 Steps To Help You Create A Wellness Program

What is a wellness program and how can you use it to reduce your company's healthcare costs? Using a wellness program, you will be able to help teach your employees how to get in shape and to focus on their health. When employees are able to focus on their health and they find ways to improve it, it will allow them to become more productive and it also helps in providing you with happier employees. Focusing on employee health is one of the best things that you can do for your organization. Some insurance companies even offer discounts to companies that implement wellness programs into their organization. So how can you get started with an effective wellness program? Here is a 5 step approach to setting up a wellness program.

Step # 1 - Start with assessments
One of the first places to start is with employee health assessments. You want to bring in a team of experts to perform health screenings that will aid in showing your employees health issues that they need to be aware of. This is a great way to educate them on their current health state but it also helps them to figure out what they need to do in order to get healthy. For the employees that are already in good health, the assessments are beneficial at showing them what they are doing right and helping them to keep on track with it. The assessments are a great opportunity for you to figure out the overall health state of your company and to help you in finding a way to provide better health benefits and creating an active workforce. You will be able to know what issues need to be addressed and to use them in your wellness program.

Step # 2 - Create nutrition plans
An effective wellness program will always include a nutrition program. The nutrition program should include eating tips and programs for your employees and you also need to focus on finding ways to promote better health in the workplace as well. Get rid of the unhealthy snacks and things that are found in the vending machines. You need to offer healthier snacks to your employees as these snacks will provide your workforce with more energy to do their jobs. You also need to provide your staff with plenty of fresh water to drink each day as this helps to provide them with energy and flushes bacteria from the body.

Step # 3 - Create an exercise program
Your employees may choose to participate in an exercise program but they may also choose to avoid it altogether. A good wellness program needs to include some type of exercise program in order to help your employees lose weight and to get in shape. The exercise program should be used to help lose weight but you also need to focus on getting all of your employees to work on getting in shape. Use programs in the office where the employees can go to exercise such as a yoga class or offer them access to an on-site fitness center. You might also consider including discounts to local health clubs as well.

Step # 4 - Teamwork
For your wellness program to work effectively you need to consider getting your employees to work together in teams. When people are able to lean on each other and support each other, it helps to make everyone involved in the program and really gives people motivation as well.

Step # 5 - Incentives
One of the things that you want to include with the wellness program is some type of incentive to your staff. What will motivate your employees to get involved in the program? Financial rewards are always great but there could be other programs as well that you want to consider.