How to Create and Promote a Successful Employee Health & Wellness Program: 10 Actionable Tips

This article first appeared on our blog here.

Employees are kind of important. They do the work. They meet the customers on your company’s behalf. They also account for 20-35% of your operating budget, likely making them your single biggest overhead.

They are one of your key investments, so making sure they are happy, healthy, motivated, and both physically and mentally ready to efficiently perform their job is surely in your company’s interest. 

If you care about your employees, you’ve likely thought of implementing a health and wellness program to protect your investment in people.

What is a health and wellness program exactly?

Health and wellness programs are a fairly recent workplace trend, but one that’s growing year after year with around 75% of employers today providing employees with some type of such program or benefit.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness programs, but what unites them all is the objectives companies have behind them and benefits that employees experience because of them.

Often they can be a combination of the following:

Implementing such a program at your company might not only have a positive impact on employee productivity and engagement, but it can also lead to higher employee satisfaction, and in the long run - retention and a more attractive company culture.

So, if you’re ready to implement a health and wellness program, you’ve surely ran into such questions as:

• “Which program do I choose?”
• “How do I communicate it to employees”?
• “How do I make it stick? 

We’re here to help.

5 tips for creating the right health & wellness program

Tip #1: There’s no right answer

Wellness programs come in all shapes and sizes and they even differ within the same company. While Friday shoulder massages might be ideal for your head office, it would cause quite a chaos if they were to be introduced on the production line. All attempts to improve the wellbeing of employees are right, so don’t let the lack of a perfect plan prevent you from doing nothing.

Tip #2: Build your health squad

It’s less about assembling a company football team, and more about choosing your pioneers - capable and driven people who will manage your wellness program within the company. It’s going to take a lot of ideas and work to get implemented and it’s not fair to let it fall on the HR team shoulders. By recruiting people across departments, you’re also making sure you’re building a program that suits employees of all ages, functions, and activity levels. 

Tip #3: Ask your employees

It’s pretty straightforward: if you want to help your employees become healthier, fitter, and set for success, ask them what they need. It can be done with an easy employee survey, team meeting, or 1:1 interviews. Listen and gather ideas, then crunch the results and notice patterns. 

Tip #4: Set your objectives

There are two parties to consider when designing your program: the employees and the company. Both sides should benefit and those benefits need to be somewhat quantifiable - mostly for the company so that the continuation of the program isn’t questioned in the future. 

Make sure you align your program objectives to the company mission and needs. If you want to transform the morale and culture, then team sports and group workouts could be the way to go. If you’re looking to boost productivity and satisfaction, you might consider mindfulness training, nap rooms, or even childcare.

Tip #5: Make a simple plan

By now you’ve collected feedback from your employees, are clear on the program objectives, and selected your dream team to oversee the implementation. It’s time to create a concrete plan. The key here is not to overdo it and to make sure your program matches your budget and resources. Don’t overthink or make it too complicated. Think about making it easily understood.

5 tips for getting your employees excited about the program

Tip #1: Incentivize

Creating long term health and fitness habits ultimately comes down to every employee, but studies show that incentives can increase participation. It can be a simple points system resulting in monthly or quarterly prices being handed. Or on the other side of the spectrum, it could be reduced insurance rates or increased pension contributions for employees who are active in the program. 

You can also bring in technology for extra motivation. Some wellness programs have online portals that provide current health information of participating employees, while other sync with wearables so that employees can track their progress and compete among each other. 

Tip #2: Let people choose

Every company comprises a multitude of personalities and preferences. We all have different haircuts, clothes, drive different cars and bikes and when we go home, we tune into different shows and opt for various food options. Why is it then that companies often try to force employees to act and feel the same? Do not make this mistake and offer personalizable wellness programs instead. Urban Sports Club, for instance, lets employees decide whether they want to swim laps before work, pop to a kickboxing class at lunchtime, participate in the volleyball team tournament or try the occasional rock climbing. 

Tip #3: Get the senior buy-in

You can run all the internal communication campaigns you like, nothing will have the same impact as employees seeing your CEO at the local Crossfit Box or your new Head of Digital joining the football team. Senior managers need to show that they take employee fitness seriously, not just say it. 

Tip #4: Communicate, communicate, communicate

Continuous communication is key. Do you offer healthy snacks in the office? Is there a yoga class everyone can join at 6PM on Wednesdays? Make sure everyone knows about those. Has your company volunteered to participate at the local marathon? Post pictures afterwards. Are you entering your teams into city football competitions, obstacle course race, or a corporate tug-of-war challenge? Let your employees know about all those initiatives through your newsletter, intranet, Slack channels dedicated to health and fitness, posters, weekly meetings, and more.

Tip #5: Keep fostering the healthy spirit

Employee health and wellness is never really “done”. It needs nurturing, challenging, and more exercising. If you already opted in to the Urban Sports Club Memberships and your employees use it regularly, why not to create company football and volleyball teams for the Urban Sports League for instance. Or raise money for a charity you support by running a marathon or climbing three local mountains in just 24 hours. 

And there you go! Here are our tips on how to create and promote your health and wellness program. Let us know how you do that in your organization and what other methods you use to spread the word.

This article first appeared on our blog here.