How to Create an Employee Wellness Program at Your Remote Company

You’ve heard the benefits of creating a wellness program at your remote company and you’re ready to implement one...but how do you begin? Below are tips to get you started!

Create digital teams

Company leaders of remote companies need to go that extra mile to promote cohesion. Just like teleconferencing or videoconferencing for business meetings or weekly Skype pow-wows, technology facilitates wellness opportunities.

Use technology

Teleworkers need education and encouragement where they live--online.

For company competitions and goal incentives, like weight loss or fitness challenges, remote workers can participate on company website portals--even form their own team challenges to other teleworkers.

Other tools

Including social media like Facebook, IM, Snapchat, Google Hang-outs, Slack, Trello or even wearables that help track and connect to other employees are great for sharing photos (selfies, of course), progress, recipes, blog posts, and milestones.

Remote employees who feel the support of a team are not only happier but more motivated to take advantage of company-sponsored wellness activities.

Customize to Empathize

Choose adaptable activities that translate to a remote workforce. Be sure your program includes both at-home or on the road activities, like home test kits, any-time biometric screenings, or outcomes-directed weight or fitness challenges that can be digitally reported.

Create health-drives with reimbursement for gym passes, or wearables that record stair climbing. Also live-stream company health coaches, fitness sessions or webcasts on health topics. Or offer vouchers to walk-in clinics for blood pressure checks.

A little ingenuity also reduces the program drop-out rate. Meet your workers where they are--online--to remove obstacles and promote success.

Communication, Communication, Communication

Clear, open and ample communication is a must. It gets lonely out there. Telecommuters don’t get those water cooler chats. Their solo efforts must be bolstered by company reminders to stay healthy.

Make remote workers part of wellness program creation, maintenance and problem solving. All wellness programs are works in progress for needs adjustment. Have multiple digital touch-points to encourage remote employees. Send them wellness messages through apps, text and even voice mail. Send feedback surveys to help cure wheezing wellness programs suffering over time.

Emails are good too. But write clear, specific and encouraging messages that include a call to action. Keep in mind, however, remote workers get tons of emails. Wellness messages may get lost in the shuffle.

Use internal sites for updates and sharing keep everyone in touch and in the know. Slack is a great communication tool for remote companies. And why not create a “wellness champion network” of role models who champion the company’s wellness efforts and reach out to employees with insights and feedback?

Know Your Employees

No doubt, know who works for you--where they live and what motivates them. Offering gym memberships is great. But maybe not for those in rural areas with more cows than gyms.

That’s also why employee input and feedback is critical to any wellness program. Make your HRA’s (health risk assessments) fillable online. They’re perfect private information-gathering sources useful to education and activities geared to a specific working population, and for measuring milestones.

Finally, include employees in designing and customizing your wellness program. The healthy pulse of your company wellness culture depends on all those satellite points converging into one mindset: health, happiness and productivity.

Health Hero provides smart, multi-channel and integrated health engagement experiences that are powerful and simple to deploy to employees in seconds. Contact us today to learn how we can create a customized plan for you!