As an employer, you need your company and its workers to be productive. Keeping staff motivated, engaged, and happy on the job is hard enough—but when you factor in the many health conditions affecting the United States, balancing the challenge of keeping everyone healthy and happy so they can work (and you can save money) can feel overwhelming. Obesity and related chronic diseases are very costly to employers averaging $93 billion per year in health insurance claims. Many of these conditions are strongly linked to factors that include smoking, inadequate exercise and poor dietary choices—all of which can be modified with the help of company wellness programs.
Tips for successful wellness programs
Workplace wellness programs can help offset some of these challenges. After all, what’s more fun than competing against your friends and co-workers for bragging rights and fitting in to a smaller pair of jeans? For the best possible buy-in, allow your employees to have a say or suggest programs they would like to participate in. Send around a survey or list of some ideas and ask them for their own. Regular and short term programs. Activities that have a quick duration (usually no longer than a month) will help employees stay motivated and focused on the goal ahead. At the end of the challenge period, offer a prize for their efforts. Just make sure it’s something healthy and beneficial, not something that would set them back.
And one word of caution—encourage your employees to see their doctor for a checkup before they start any kind of health challenge. You can suggest employees get a broader picture of their health with a genetic wellness test. Genetic testing can tell employees about their personal risk factors the development of certain diseases, information on how they process nutrients, and even what diet is most effective for their body type before they start a wellness program. Pathway Genomics offers genetic testing that can get your employees off on the right foot. You certainly wouldn’t want anyone to go overboard and injure or harm themselves to win. Try to keep the tone positive and friendly and discourage going to extremes.
Ready to start planning? Here are 19 ideas to get you headed in the right direction:
1. Host on-site yoga classes
2. Start a walk to work challenge
3. Offer standing desks
4. Create a healthy office cookbook that employees can contribute to
5. Offer healthy snacks on site instead of chips in the vending machine
6. Give incentives for smoking cessation
7. Plan a monthly healthy pot luck lunch
8. Host a stair climbing competition
9. Form a walking club over lunch
10. Create an area for weights or a small gym
11. Invite a chef to teach healthy cooking
12. Encourage 10 minutes of daily quiet time to reduce stress
13. Offer information on exercises to build better posture
14. Encourage employees to get up and move around for 10 minutes every hour
15. Hold a health fair
16. Hold weekly healthy lunch-and-learn health topic presentations
17. Remove soda machines and offer a flavored water bar
18. Pass out pedometers and give a prize to the person with the most steps
19. Start a monthly weight loss challenge following a specific program supervised by your company nurse or bring in a nutritionist
The path to better workplace wellness is paved with motivation, support and positivity. As a leader, your team will look to you to set the pace so remember—it’s mutually beneficial to get healthy and stay that way. Don’t be afraid to lead with confidence and watch your team fall in to pace too.