Employee Wellness Newsletter : What are Worksite Health Promotion Programs?

The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports defines wellness as “a multidimensional state of being describing the existence of positive health in an individual as exemplified by quality of life and a sense of wellness.” Wellness looks beyond the current model of treating disease and focuses on preventive behaviors and healthier lifestyles. Worksite Wellness Programs, also usually referred to as Worksite Wellness Programs, serve as a complement to existing insurance-based health benefit programs and can take many forms and address a myriad different potential health conditions. They are a powerful strategy to promote positive lifestyle changes that can result in significant cost savings for companies.

Examples of potential components of a Company Wellness Program include:

Health Risk Assessments / Employee Wellness Screenings – Health Risk Assessments (aka Health Risk Appraisals), evaluate the most prevalent lifestyle-related risks of an individual. HRAs often include screenings for Blood Pressure (BP), cholesterol, glucose levels and other health indicators. These analyses supply valuable benchmarking measures that ideally will allow employees to prevent or lower their risk of diseases. Finding Wealth Through Wellness, As noted by Kathryn Krivy, director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Institute in Chicago, “Medically based Health Risk Assessments are a necessity because in order to affect modifications in your corporation, you need to know what the issues are, and you just don’t know until you get the data.”

Physical Activity and Weight Management – One of the most popular Workplace Health Promotion Programs is for employers to support access to a wellbeing and health center, frequently on-Site. Other potential measures include offering healthier vending machines and cafeteria options, weight management support groups and fitness challenge programs. Some employers, like hospital group Baptist Health South Florida, will even pay for employees to go to weight-loss classes such as Weight Watchers.

Awareness and Education Programs – A lot  businesses have events approaching the benefits of nutrition, safety or physical fitness, among other issues. Other options are to host a wellness fair or administer a disease-awareness campaign.

Behavior Modification – This covers issues like smoking, wearing seat belts, and alcohol use. While many businesses will provide assistance for staff members looking to modify behavior, some businesses, like health care benefits administrator Weyco, Inc., mandate changes, such as quitting smoking, as a condition of employment.

Alternative Treatments – Other Corporate Wellness Programs can cover absorbing some or all of the costs for massages, stress-reduction activities like yoga or even herbal medicines.