How to incorporate a wellness program

Employers are losing about $12.7 billion dollars a year in lost production costs, sick leave benefits, and health insurance premiums due to their employees that are overweight. In a survey conducted by the CDC, employers stated that they are more concerned about their overweight employees than their employees that smoke. While both cause healthcare costs to rise, overweight employees tend to use more sick leave than their smoking co-workers. To combat obesity and the rising cost of healthcare, employers have begun implementing wellness programs.

A wellness program can be tailored to fit the needs of your company and you can customize it however you need. Depending upon the number of employees you have, you may want to do a one on one wellness program or you may want to divide your employees into teams. Dividing your employees into teams is a wise decision because it causes employees to work harder to lose their weight or improve their health because they don't want to let down their team members.

Contact a local gym and have a personal trainer or fitness expert come in and meet with your employees. Most gym memberships come with access to a personal trainer that will help people create a workout routine for their body. Bringing a personal trainer and a nutrition expert to your office will help some of the employees that are struggling with weight loss. The personal trainer and nutrition expert will be able to create a diet and exercise program your employees and this can help them stay on target with their weight loss goals. Make sure you bring them in a few times so they can track the progress of your employees to make sure they are staying on target with their goals.

A wellness program encompasses more than just weight loss, you also need to focus on improving health. Even the healthiest employees are susceptible to problems with healthcare costs. Some employees will get sick because they do not follow proper hand-washing procedures and they don't keep their workstation clean and free from germs. It is important to train all of your employees on proper sanitation procedures within the office so you can reduce the spread of diseases.

Encourage your employees to participate in the wellness program by setting up some good incentives for them to go after. If employees know they will get $500 for dropping 50 pounds, they will probably participate in the wellness program. Some employers offer quarterly cash rewards to their employees that participate in the wellness program, this is a great way to keep the wellness program going year-round. Depending upon how much money you have available, try offering some big rewards like an all expense paid vacation or a day off work. Whatever the incentives are, make sure they are desirable to the employees so they will actually put forth a good effort to achieve their goals.

To keep your employees on target with their wellness goals, encourage a healthy office by providing nutritious foods. Instead of bringing pizza and doughnuts to meetings, bring some vegetable and fruit trays. If the employees don't have the temptation of unhealthy foods in front of them, they are less-likely to eat these foods. Get rid of sodas and replace them with bottled water and juice drinks. Soda is just empty calories and it only adds weight to your midsection. Excess weight around the midsection actually increases your risk of cancer and heart disease.

Encourage exercise during work hours to keep your employees in shape. Exercise during work hours can rejuvenate the body and cut down on the number of employees that feel tired during work hours.