Category — Employee Wellness

When choosing  a wellness program from a vendor you ought to ask the following questions -

o  Precisely how many worksites have done the wellness program?

o  What kinds of employee population was the health promotion program offered?

o  What educational materials are used?

o  Will the wellness program meet the needs of employees?

o  What are the techniques used to help change behaviors?

o  Does the wellness program help individuals  move through stages of readiness to make health behavior changes?

o  Exactly how do you market the wellness program to employees?

o  What follow-up do you provide?

o  Precisely how do you make referrals for medical care or other supportive services workforce may need?

o  Exactly how do you know the wellness program works?

o  Just how do you measure participant satisfaction?

When staffing your wellness program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness staff or contract with wellness professionals from outside your corporation.

Small and medium size worksites don’t normally have a wellness specialist on staff. When your worksite is in this category, you’ll need to contract with providers outside your organization.

Large companies have a few choices. They can hire a staff solely for the wellness program, they can contract with outside wellness providers, or they are able to use a combination of internal staff and outside providers.

When choosing  a provider some key questions in the areas of staff, wellness program structure, process, and effectiveness need to be addressed. Each of these key questions is discussed in the following sections.

Wellness Corporation Staff

Health experts become wellness experts when they are trained in the full range of wellness activities. Wellness experts are generalists who come from a broad variety of backgrounds and schooling.

They could be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But also to their main training, they know something about all wellness topics, including use of tobacco, stress, exercise, and nutrition.

They also know how to engage and support individuals  in making and sustaining health improvements and have good individuals  skills.

Generally, wellness professionals at workplaces fall into three broad categories, wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and wellness instructors.

o  Health Promotion screeners introduce personnel to the health promotion program, take health measurements, collect health-related information, provide initial counseling, and help personnel define for themselves what they need and want in a health promotion program.

o  Wellness counselors work with personnel after the screening to help them create and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.

o  Wellness instructors teach courses and minigroups on different health topics.

A wellness program in a small company could be staffed by a single staff individuals who fills all three roles. Bigger worksites will use different people  to fill these roles.

When choosing  staff or choosing  among wellness companies, ask the following questions -

o  Do prospective workforce have a range of health backgrounds that will provide appropriate expertise in the topics to be addressed?

o  Have prospective employees functioned well as wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and/or wellness instructors?

o  Will this staff include individuals  from the ethnic and racial backgrounds found in your staff member population?

o  Is each worker comfortable with the range of backgrounds found in your worker population, and able to communicate effectively with the various social and educational levels of your employees?

o  Do personnel have a warm, but specialist, counseling style when interacting with employees?

An annual plan for the major wellness programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great wellness committee task. Very often an activity and wellness theme per month is offered to staff.

Some companies select to follow a National Health Observances calendar which offers advantages.  The materials developed by these various national health companies are very credible.  The materials are typically high quality and available free or at a nominal cost.

The business benefits from additional publicity that occurs in various media throughout the community related to the national observance. for planning suggestions you might want to utilize the HOPE Publications Health Promotion Resource Planning Guide available for free at this Web site.

A Health Risk Appraisal (HRA)  is sometimes used combined with a biometric testing.  An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

An HRA seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious disease and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.

An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the at a illness. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments could be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Individuals with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious health problems over time.

Drawing attention to their health risks can help clients reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary illness and subsequent premature death.

The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (like smoking, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (like cholesterol, blood pressure (BP) levels, height, and weight).

For accuracy, it’s crucial to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol.  The Health Risk Assessment (HRA) also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Types of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.

The impact of a health risk assessment is much greater when it’s given in-person, with immediate feedback to the customer. This also provides an opportunity to invite the customer’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.

A health age may be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age might indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) programs are one the most prolific types of wellness activities utilized by organizations. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

Among the large advantages of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a company and may be utilized as an examination tool.

Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.

The most common screening performed in health promotion programs is heart health assessment.

The screening can include a written heart health test, blood pressure measurement, cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol test, glucose (blood sugar), weight, educational materials specific to diet, nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, tobacco use, and weight.

The health professional conducting the screening then provides a consultation and helps set goals with the participant.

The backbone of wellness programming at the worksite is medical screening. It’s the first major activity a business should do when first starting a wellness program.

Medical screening is often used paired with the administration of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) .

The most effective way to screen is to utilize a health professional trained in wellness screening techniques and counseling to privately and individually assess participants.

This wellness professional takes a brief health history and measures blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol. With computerized cholesterol desktop analyzers, results are acquired in about four minutes.

Immediate feedback, consultation, and educational materials are provided. for those identified at-risk, follow-up appointments may be scheduled at this time.  The whole process takes about twenty minutes per individual.

The screening also provides an immediate opportunity to register participants in various health promotion programs based on their interests and identified health risks.

Health testing can be done each year and used as a means of monitoring health risks within the worksite.

A health screening program needs to provide multiple opportunities for participation.  The service must be provided for all the various shifts of a organization.  The screening program must be conducted in highly visible areas so the process can be observed.

Reluctant workforce often like to be able to see what the wellness program is about before they participate. When wellness screeners aren’t busy, they ought to perform outreach going to areas where workforce gather and try to recruit workforce.

When well-planned and promoted, medical screening can attract participation rates of 60 percent to 100 percent. These high participation rates have a positive impact on senior level management producing support for further wellness programming.

Goals are broad-based statements about what the wellness program is expected to do.  The goal of the wellness program is to enhance the health of the individual and the organization. Goals like mission statements provide direction in a wellness program.

Goals are specific and provide a means of measurement of the health promotion program to determine effectiveness. There are two types of objectives, process and outcome.

Process objectives state the activities that need to occur to achieve a desired outcome.

Examples of process goals are -

o  Number of participants screened

o  Number of participants in and completing wellness programs

o  Satisfaction of wellness program participants

o  Number of participants who were medically referred and saw their doctor

o  Number of promotional activities

o  Number of participants seen in follow-up

Example of outcome goals are -

o  Number of participants who improved fitness level

o  Number of participants who lowered cholesterol level

o  Number of participants who lost weight, body fat

o  Number of participants who quit tobacco use

o  Number of participants with high blood pressure (BP) who decreased their blood pressure (BP)

o  Number of participants whose initial level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk who are no longer at-risk

o  Number of participants with risk factors who saw their physician and are being treated for high blood pressure or cholesterol years later

Health Promotion committees are important in that they develop a sense of ownership in the health promotion program, and facilitate various tasks involved in health promotion programming at the worksite.

The committee should be composed of a cross-section of staff members representing various occupations, levels, and subgroups with the business.

A common mistake is filling the committee with the most health/fitness-conscious individuals  in the company. Don’t rely solely on volunteers to fill a committee. Make certain that your committee members have enough power in the company to run an effective wellness program.

The wellness committee is made up of employees from the workplace. It oversees the wellness program and helps carry it out.

The committee should meet about once a month to review the previous month’s activities and plan future ones. When the wellness program is just starting, the committee may meet weekly until things get going.

Committee members do not carry out medical procedures, counsel clients, or handle confidential health information. Wellness specialists perform these tasks.

In general, the committee’s duties fall into three areas –  planning, promoting, and assisting to run wellness programs.

Creating the health promotion programs can include -

o  Locating space for activities

o  Creating and organizing workplace-wide events like contests

o  Investigating reports prepared by the health promotion program staff and making recommendations

Marketing the health promotion program can include -

o  Recruiting staff to take part in screening and wellness programs

o  Encouraging staff members to participate in follow-up counseling

o  Organizing promotional strategies using newsletters, signs, bulletin boards, computers, and other media available within the worksite

Helping to run the health promotion program can include -

o  Setting up equipment for various activities

o  Helping to conduct worksite-wide activities

o  Monitoring all activities and analyzing  the performance of the expert staff

o  Acting as wellness mentors to fellow employees

The size of the wellness committee are going to be dependent on the size of the corporation. Pick members by asking day management to nominate or appoint staff.

Make an announcement through flyers, memos, and meetings to recruit potential members. Explain the purpose of the committee, duties and responsibilities, and the time commitment.

Recognize your wellness committee volunteers. Allow them to participate in wellness programs at a lowered cost. Hold appreciation breakfasts/lunches/dinners.

Print names of committee members on business communications about the wellness program.

Buy special T-shirts, caps, and buttons for them. Write letters to supervisors saying that you appreciate the member’s service. Develop awards certificates for members.

The following could be used as a guide for committee size -

o  Less than 300 employees   2 to 4

o  300 to 1,000 employees   4 to 6

o  1,000 personnel or more   6 to 12

Effective health promotion programs recognize the importance of building a supportive cultural environment.  The worksite culture includes shared values/heartfelt beliefs about what is important. It includes social standards of expected and accepted behavior called “cultural norms.”

It includes coworker support from family, friends, and coworkers. This support can help one adopt healthy lifestyles. Tools are available to audit a organization.

The long-term success of any wellness program is dependent on the corporate culture.

Some healthful culture signs in a corporation are -

o  Staff Members communicate openly

o  Leaders support diversity and opinion

o  Employees have fun

o  Policies support wellness

o  Workers are encouraged to grow

o  Employees work together as a team

o  Employees’ skills and talents are matched to their jobs.

o  Flexible work schedules are available

o  Corporations consider staff as their most asset

Effective wellness programs attempt to create healthy worksite climates. A healthy worksite climate is one which encourages teamwork, cooperation, and empowerment of the individual.

People  have a sense of community, a shared vision, and a positive outlook. Policies promote and support wellness efforts within the workplace.

o  Effective wellness programs identify ways that business policies and organizational traditions encourage wellness.

o  Effective health promotion programs work at the group and organizational level to build support for healthful lifestyle options.

o  Effective health promotion programs set clear target objectives and objectives for the health improvement of the workplace.