Ideas for a corporate wellness program

As healthcare costs continue to rise and the economy continues to be sour for many businesses, there is a pressing need to save money and cut expenses. Many businesses are looking for ways to drop their health insurance premium costs and you have others that are looking for ways in which they can cut costs without firing people. What is a solution to these issues? A great solution for you to consider is to implement a wellness program. How can a wellness program save you money? A wellness program is actually a great asset to a company. It comes with a lot of perks to it like decreasing job stress, improving productivity, and reducing your higher health care costs.

It is important to invest in your employees in order to see just what type of asset they are to your organization. You need to make sure that your employees know that you are investing in them and that you are going to do all that you can in order to make their job better. A wellness program is a great way to do this because it does help to raise awareness around the issues at hand like obesity. As your employees are able to see their own health issues and given solutions to them, they are likely to respond and to actually make steps toward improving their health and wellness.

A lot of people find it hard to invest into a wellness program when they are just trying to stay afloat. This is a common concern but you have to consider what all of the various benefits are of the program and to consider if they are valid enough to warrant the investment in the program. Here are some of the issues that a good wellness program will shed some light on:

• Unhealthy lifestyle habits like drinking soda and filling up on candy for snacks.


• Not enough exercise, which can lead to heart disease.


• Increased amount of absenteeism.


• Reduced productivity.

Employees that get involved with the program will start to see benefits in just a few weeks; some may even have benefits in a few days. It is important to know what your employees are capable of doing and really encouraging them to start working hard to lose weight or to quit smoking and to stick to a plan that will be able to help them live longer, healthier lives.

So how can you introduce the wellness program? There are a number of ways in which you can kick off the program but you have to consider if you want to run the program or if you will send it out to other people to run for you. It will need a lot of maintenance in order for the program to run effectively so you must take a look at your time and if this is something you can add to your list.

Host a Large Event
A great way to raise awareness is by holding a large health fair or event where you can discuss the new corporate wellness program. Have all your employees gathered together and treat them to a healthy lunch along with introducing the program and what it will entail and what type of incentives are out there if they participate in the program.

Once you host the event you need to send out emails and newsletters to remind your employees of the program and to ensure that people are remembering to participate in the program. Keeping the wellness program at the forefront of their mind is one of the best ways in which you can get people to participate in it.