Health Promotion Program – Developing Goals and Objectives.

Create goals and objectives

Goals are general guidelines that explain what you want to achieve. Goals define strategies or steps to take to attain the identified goal.

A wellness program should have a “destination”. Use the results of your surveys and your wellness committee’s mission statement as guides. Consider these ideas -

o  Focus on making health information and learning resources readily available to staff members

o  Focus on group activities so employees can work together to support and encourage healthier lifestyles

o  Develop a health promotion program that is visible to both employees and to your customers

o  Focus on written policies and guidelines

o  Make sure to set goals for your health promotion program.

Review Guidelines for Writing Goals.

Wellness Program Objectives Should be

Specific – A goal is specific when it provides a description of what’ll be accomplished. It’ll state exactly what the corporation intends to accomplish.

It ought to be written so that it could be easily and obviously communicated. A specific goal will make it easier for those writing objectives and action plans to address the following questions -

o  Who’s to be involved?

o  What’s to be accomplished?

o  Where is it to be done?

o  When’s it to be done?

Measurable – A goal is measurable when it is quantifiable.  To determine when your goal is measurable, ask questions such as – Precisely how much? Precisely how many? How’ll I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable – You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that authorizes you to carry out those steps. Objectives that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable.

Realistic – Realistic, means “do-able.” the goal needs to be realistic for your company and where the company is at the moment.

A goal to take out all the high fat items in the vending machine might not be realistic for your business right now; a better goal would be to substitute some of the chips, candy bars and pies for pretzels, yogurt and dried fruit.

Timely – In conclusion, a goal must have a timeframe –  for next week, in three months, by age 35. It must have a starting and ending point. It should also have some intermediate points at which progress may be evaluated.

Limiting the time in which a goal ought to be accomplished assists to focus effort toward its achievement. When you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.