How to design an effective wellness program

There are many businesses that are realizing the importance of offering an employee wellness program. Not only does having an employee wellness program help to improve the health of your current employees, but it can be a powerful recruiting tool, for attracting other top candidates. Employers have also realized that having a healthy workforce, means having employees who take less time off,and are more productive while they are at work. Because of the many benefits employee wellness programs have moved to the forefront in many businesses. However, many business owners are unsure of exactly how to start putting a program together. The good news is that there is plenty of information to guide you in the process. Here is what you need to know about how to design an effective wellness program-

- Find out the needs-Sending out surveys to your employees can help you to determine what your employee wellness program should focus on. Your employee wellness program will be highly ineffective if you can't have it focus on the meeting the needs of your employees. The survey needs to ask questions that will help your employees, express what their biggest health concerns. If your employee wellness program does not address the health needs of your employees, there is little chance that you will get the participation that you want. Once the surveys come in, the team that is charged with designing the employee wellness program will have plenty of information to begin sort through.
- Do the research-Sending out surveys to your employees will not be enough to design your employee wellness program. You will need to take the time to take a close look at how other businesses, have structured their employee wellness program. If there are no businesses in your location that are willing to share information, then going online can be a great way to find the necessary information you will need in designing your program. You should also talk to your insurance provider, to determine who much money you can save, by implementing certain aspects of an employee wellness program. There are also numerous reports available about what other businesses have found to be helpful, when they put together their employee wellness program. Keep in mind that the more research you do, the easier it will be to design the employee wellness program that will be the most beneficial, for your company and employees.
- Send out Health Risk Assessment-An effective employee wellness program is a lot more then just a few posters, or classes. You will need to know exactly what the participants are concerned about and what type of medical history that they have. For example-If your employees are concerned about weight loss, show signs of obesity and indicate an interest in diet and nutrition, then you will know where a major focus of your employee wellness program should be. In addition, to having employees fill out a Health Risk Assessment it can be helpful to have a health care provider offer free health screening. This way you can collect the information that you need, about the current health of your employees.
- Put the program in place-Once you have all of the information that you need, you are ready to put the program in place. Keep in mind that in order for the employee wellness program to work, you will need to have management support, all the way down to the newest employees. Management will set the tone about the importance of the employee wellness program, and be the most effective in encouraging participation. The bottom line is that if management supports the program, then the employee are much more likely to get involved with it.

Implementation
Once you have all the data and you are able to see what type of wellness programs your employees are in need of, you can start with the implementation phase. The implementation of the wellness program has to come from management. Each member of your management has to be committed to the program and they need to do it. By becoming an active participant, it helps to show your employees just how important it is and they will have a desire to participate as well.

Start by holding a meeting with your entire staff and talk to them about the wellness program. Show them how it will work so they can find out which things they can participate in and which things will work effectively for them. The Human Resources department will then be in charge of following up with the program and to be sure that your employees are following through with the goals of the program and that they are actually able to get compensation if they do the hard work.