Strategies for Launching Successful Wellness Days [Case Study]

As?Workplace Wellness professionals, we?know that certain programs require more hands-on management than other initiatives. In fact, launching a Wellness Day for?an organization requires?all?hands on?deck! Now, imagine organizing simultaneous wellness days across?over?50 different municipalities, and you’ll get a small picture of the task?facing?Rebecca?Kolstee, one of our?Certified Master Workplace Wellness Ambassadors from our Level 2 program.?

I interviewed Rebecca in October of 2020 for our "Cultivating Healthy and Vibrant Workplaces" YouTube series to discuss the planning and hosting of their first-ever?Nova Scotia?Municipal?Wellness?Day?held in May of 2019 with 51 Nova Scotia municipalities that she supports as their Workplace Wellness Coordinator.?(The province of Nova Scotia has since proclaimed May 23rd to be their ‘Municipal Wellness Day.’)

Rebecca also provided me with a detailed account of this year's ‘Municipal Wellness Day’ facilitated in May 2020 and their last-minute pivots to work around the pandemic. Be sure to check it out at the end of this article.

Before we jump into the details of their day's events,?let’s quickly review the purpose and value of Wellness?Days?to organizations and their employees.?

What’s the Purpose of a “Workplace?Wellness?Day”??

When your organization is ready to consider employee well-being, implementing a Wellness Day helps promote healthy lifestyle behaviours, and builds a sense of team and culture cohesiveness. It can provide employees with a fun, healthy and interactive way to connect and recharge as well as an opportunity to get to know and build relationships with senior leaders, management, co-workers, and the organization's Wellness Champions (i.e., team members who have been tapped to promote wellness initiatives within the organization).??

You may?want to kick off new wellness initiatives with a special Wellness Day devoted to promoting healthier habits. Or?you may re-offer or promote past, successful?initiatives that your organization has already embraced.??

Regardless of the reason, devoting an entire day to employee well-being is?important for?all stakeholders from employees and leaders to Workplace Wellness Champions and Coordinators. Not only does this kind of day?bring?existing offerings?to the forefront, but it also helps promote a friendlier, more united office culture,?and can serve as a?much-needed?break from the daily stressors of a typical?workday…and in the end, cultivate?healthier, happier organizations.??

A behind-the-scenes look at a?Wellness Day Schedule?

Of course, if you don’t fill your Wellness Day with varied and enticing programming, employee engagement will likely fall off…fast.???

As a certified, skilled and seasoned Workplace Wellness Professional, Rebecca knew just how crucial programming would be to the success of her?municipal?wellness days. But she also knew that every municipality—like every organization—is different, so she wanted to leave room for flexibility.??To that end, she?set up a website with programming suggestions.?Each municipality was then free to choose as many—or as few—as they liked, creating unique?schedules?for the day.?

Listed below, are activities you might consider for your own employee Wellness Days that were a big hit with Rebecca's employee groups.

Lunch and Learns:?Have team members bring their own lunch to eat while enjoying a wellness-related presentation and discussion (or?serve a healthy treat, depending on budget).

Casual?Day:?Employees ditch their suits and heels and come in their comfiest attire (some organizations may need to include dress code suggestions in order to ensure a minimum level of decorum.) To expand the Wellness Day to the community, the NS municipalities were encouraged to donate any casual day proceeds to a?local charity of their choice.

Potlucks:?Have team members sign up to bring a healthy meal or appetizer and?pool their recipes while sitting and socializing?over the shared meal as in the image below shared by Rebecca.

Fitness?Events:?From relay races to morning 5Ks, any activity that gets?team members to move more finds its perfect place on a Wellness Day.??

Lunch?Time?Walks or?Walking?Meetings:?Get?the?whole team to go for a noon-time?stroll or?suggest holding walking meetings on your Wellness Day!?

Workplace Garden:?This is a great time to start a wellness garden or use the day to harvest?some fresh vegetables you have already grown.??

Virtual Reality Adventures:?Host a dynamic event using a Virtual Reality apparatus that simulates any of the following experiences for employees: a soothing, stress-releasing atmosphere; a physical workout or golf game; or a heart-pounding shark adventure (as a form of escapism). The result will be very happy, energized employees.

Celebrate Success:?Acknowledge?the hard work and accomplishments of the employees and teams within your?workplace. Take time to notice and celebrate what employees have done to make the workplace a more positive environment.?

Wellness Challenges:?You might even consider using the Wellness Day to kick-start a 4-week wellness challenge.?Offering health and wellness challenges are a fun way to help employees stay motivated. You can introduce a variety of different challenges, ranging from physical activity to healthy eating?or?staying hydrated. And be creative with the delivery: post pictures on social media; use apps?that allow employees to challenge each other; or go for the personal touch with a face-to-face, onsite, introduction.??

These are just a few of the?offerings?that can make your organization’s Wellness?Day?a hit. But even with the most creative and exciting events, these full-day events can fall flat without?attending to key success factors such as?employee?awareness, participation, and?buy-in.?And, for many Workplace Wellness leaders, that can be the toughest piece of the puzzle!?

Building Excitement:?the?Crucial Key to Successful Wellness Days?

It can be challenging enough to get one organization to opt into wellness programming, but that challenge was multiplied 51 times?over for Rebecca.

Because of that, she?told me...

“A main priority for the wellness program was to make it as?easy as possible?for their municipalities to deliver wellness?initiatives throughout the day.”??

In addition to the website with pre-designed program offerings, she also created unique social media platforms in order to promote their Wellness Days?and build excitement?

To train?Wellness Champions?in each municipality, Rebecca created?(and recorded)?a webinar that?introduced?their?Wellness Day website, helping them understand how to get the most out of its resources.??

To secure top-down participation, she sent multiple emails to senior leaders,?asking for their full support in promoting the Day to employees and elected officials. She also?encouraged?them?to provide staff with flex?time?that would facilitate participation?in the events.

To easily get the word out to participants, Rebecca pre-drafted promotional emails for their Wellness Champions and senior leaders to send directly to staff.??

With careful pre-planning and promotion, and a wealth of engaging activities, Rebecca’s Nova Scotia-wide Wellness Days were a major success with?over?60% of their municipalities participating in their first offering in May 2019. Even more incredible is that they experienced a 20% increase in municipal engagement in 2020.?

Implementing "Wellness?Days" are just one of the many ways in which our Workplace Wellness Center of Excellence Ambassadors like Rebecca are cultivating inclusive wellness offerings, enhanced well-being and healthier work cultures.

Launching a “Wellness Day” in Pandemic times!

At the time of preparing this article for LinkedIn (i.e., at the start of the pandemic), Rebecca was kind enough to send me an overview of their second Wellness Day offered on May 22, 2020.

Captured below, is her account of the planning and facilitation of that year's events and the improvisations required to work around the pandemic-imposed challenges and limitations.

As she shared with me following their 2020 Wellness Day, she established a committee to help plan, promote and?implement that year’s initiatives. The committee had representatives from 5 municipalities from across the province. Due to the pandemic and physical distancing, many of the municipal employees were working from home and so they needed to put a spin on the?Wellness Day by creating a host of activities that municipal employees and elected officials could do virtually and/or while maintaining physical distancing.

They decided to focus the 2020 Wellness Day around the theme of ‘Gratitude.’ Rebecca commented: “We all recognized that everyone had been working extremely hard through the pandemic, while also trying to deal with the tragic events (i.e., Nova Scotia mass shooting) that occurred in the province.?Our municipal employees, senior leaders and council members worked tirelessly to help our communities through these difficult times. To recognize and honor their efforts we arranged to have our senior leadership, namely our CAO’s (Chief Administrator Officers) and Council members, express their gratitude to their employees via recorded videos that were posted to YouTube.”

2020 Wellness Day Events! Leading up to their 2020 Wellness Day, Rebecca shared that they held a week-long wellness BINGO challenge and launched a 10-week Trek Challenge (i.e., walk, run, bike etc.) across Nova Scotia. They had over 300 participants sign up and are currently engaged in this amazing challenge. During the day itself, they hosted a “virtual” yoga session, nutrition talk and a cooking demo (i.e., spaghetti squash buffalo chicken) and extended the day’s events into the evening with a “paint night” and trivia session. Most of the sessions were recorded and placed under a password-protected area on our website to provide employees with unlimited/future access to the sessions.

Reflections and Learnings! Rebecca felt the events were all very well received. Since the sessions were live-streamed (and recorded), they were able to monitor the viewership continuously. One of several key evaluation criteria for assessing the success and effectiveness of the day. ?

She added: “Our committee also conducted a thorough debrief of the Day.?It was determined that more CAO’s embraced 2020’s Wellness Day than our inaugural?launch in 2019. We also had an increased number of participants and are still experiencing?participation via the ongoing events and views of our recorded events.?It was helpful to have a team plan the 2020 Wellness Day initiatives. A process we will likely continue in future offerings. We also chose a theme for the day and provided a variety of activities to meet the varied needs and interests of our employees. The only thing we might do differently in the future is start the planning process a bit earlier. Offering Wellness Days require a lot of coordination and preparation. Therefore, starting the planning in February would be most ideal. Due to the pandemic, our priorities and resource allocations required a number of last-minute shifts and improvisations.”

Here are a few of their leadership's “Gratitude” videos posted to YouTube…

Wellness Program Coordinator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGnDSRIuhN4

Municipality of Argyle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7fyd5NjoI

Town of Annapolis Royal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNLSXV2wBNU

Town of Truro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o87iHWNi_oE

To learn more about their 2020 Municipal Wellness Day visit https://nsmunicipalwellness.ca/ or reach out to Rebecca at [email protected].

About the Author:

Lisa Kelly, President,?Workplace Wellness Centre of Excellence?(a division of KWC Inc.), has been cultivating healthy changes within workplaces and with personal clients for over 20 years.?Through her?“Workplace Wellness Leadership Certification Series”?and?Executive Wellness Leadership Programs, Lisa’s mission is to create an innovative and collaborative landscape for global workplace wellness that fosters employee-driven, results-oriented wellness solutions to benefit employers, employees, and communities at large.

To learn more about our dynamic Workplace Wellness Ambassador and Executive Wellness Coaching Certification Programs and our other programs/courses, visit www.workplacewellnesscoe.com or connect with us at [email protected].

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