Who to hire to help you improve employee health

Employee health is important to many different entities in the office.First of all, the employee is hopefully taking an interest in improving their health, while more and more employers are realizing the benefits of promoting wellness among employees.But such collaboration takes more than just a few people.As some would say, "it takes an army" to do something like improve employee health.Fortunately there are people that you can hire you can help you to improve employee health by brining strengths, experience, and expertise to the job that you may not be currently equipped with.The following is a list of employees whose jobs are directly related to employee health.Each occupation has its own realm of influence and the hiring process ought to be integrally connected with your goals of employee health and wellness.

Employee health insurance administrator

An employee health insurance administrator is an employee that you want to hire no matter the size of your business.If you have a smaller operations with fewer employees this position may be combined with the role of a human-resource manager.The importance of having someone in this job is that you need someone at the company who is going to go to bat for the health insurance needs, concerns and disputes of the employee.This person needs to have a good understanding of how insurance companies and policies work as well as what the process is when you are considering a switch to a new provider.Naturally, experience is a plus as there are many different details, including legal matters, that really need to be understood by at least one person at the company.

Employee wellness program coordinator

If your desire is to improve employee health, you are going to need to take action to facilitate that desire.For most companies, this means implementing an employee wellness program.That program has to have a leader and that brings us to the role of the employee wellness program coordinator.This individual is in charge of carrying out the goals of his or her committee as well as to promote and provide information regarding the services being offered through the wellness program.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP) counselor

Smart employers realize that body and mind are connected and that in order to improve an employee's physical health, you must also address any mental health issues that are present.This is where the EAP counselor becomes so important.An EAP counselor is a therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor who has the training to be able to provide counseling to employees in a manner that will remain confidential.Mental health evaluations can be incredibly expensive and are often not covered by traditional health plans so providing this service can really make a difference in how your employees feel.

Dietician or nutritionist

Knowledge is power.When you hire a dietician or nutritionist to help your company to come up with information to be distributed to employees or use their services to conduct one-on-one planning sessions with the employees.This method of information distribution is generally well received because of its low intimidation factor.The first step to improving employee health is to get the employee to realize that they have options or steps that they can take to ease themselves into a healthier lifestyle.

Of course, there are more people who you could hire to help you improve employee health including personal trainers, exercise instructors, and wellness coaches.But the underlying principles in making the decision to hire any of these individuals lies with the specific needs of your business.Maybe your employee health issues are more about smoking cessation that exercise.Your approach and decisions for who to hire will be different depending on what types of services are needed.