Helping your employees control their weight

When it comes to weight issues in the office, employers know the importance of addressing it with their staff members because they can easily lose millions of dollars on lost production costs and healthcare costs. If you are like most companies, you want to keep your workforce healthy. This can happen if you will spend some time helping them to do control their weight problems. Here are some ways you can address the weight issues in your office and get your staff to lose weight:

Step # 1 - Hold a meeting
Hold a staff meeting and be completely honest with the extra costs of health insurance that are being caused as a direct result of the employees that are overweight.Let your employees know that if they are willing to lose weight, you are willing to negotiate for higher wages or other benefits when the healthcare costs start to decrease. After the staff meeting, hold one-on-one meetings with each staff member. Talk to them about their goals and find out if they are willing to participate in the new wellness program you are initiating. Truly express your concern for their health and ask them what you can do to help them improve their health. This is a great way to build your relationships with your employees and encourage healthy living in your office.

Step # 2 - Be sensitive
Weight loss is a touchy subject for a lot of people. Don't single out the employees that need to lose weight. Try to get the entire company to lose weight so this person doesn't feel like they are being picked on. Motivate everyone at the office to improve their health, even if they don't need to lose weight. The wellness program you implement must focus on changing diets and including daily exercise. Try to come up with ideas that will benefit everyone at the company.

Step # 3 - Set Deadlines
Losing weight is not an easy task, so you must be realistic with your deadlines. Keep the program simple and send reminders to your employees to help them stay on track with their weight loss goals. However you set up your wellness program, be sure to collect employee information so you can track their progress to show them how well they are doing.

Step # 4 - Incentives
If you are serious about getting your employees to lose weight, you need to offer incentives to them. You can do small things like cash rewards to gift cards or extra vacation time. The incentive must be something that is desirable to the employees or else they won't go for it. Take a look at other companies that have introduced wellness programs to find out what they have given their employees, this is an easy way to determine if you have chosen incentives that will get results.

Step # 5 - Reminders
Most employees will start out strong with their weight loss goals and then end up losing focus and start to fade. Don't let them forget about the wellness program challenge! Send out email reminders and discuss the progress people are making during staff meeting. Tally up weekly numbers and email it to everyone as a group number, this is a great way for your employees to get a good look as to how well the wellness program is working. Place banners around the office and update them with the weekly numbers, this will help to keep people motivated about weight loss. It will also help them get a good idea as to how much competition is in their way before they can reach their final goal and get the big reward.