Health promotion programs come in all shapes and sizes. But regardless of plan design there are five common components that set the successful health promotion programs apart from the rest.
At their core, wellness programs require constant monitoring and periodic adjustments. The wellness programs that get mediocre results are the ones that are left to run on autopilot. That’s why it’s critical to –
1. Know thine enemy You’ve to know what’s driving your largest claim costs on your healthcare plan – both among employees and their dependents.
2. Develop realistic expectations. With wellness, what an company gets will almost always depend on how much it spends, how well it plans and how well it sustains communications with participants and the vendor.
3. Maintain strong communications. The wellness programs that achieve the greatest success are those which are communicated aggressively from the get go and are sustained. Repetition is your friend when doing staff member education.
4. Integrate wellness with other benefits. Real-life experience has shown that you ought to consider your staff member assistance programs (EAPs) an extension of the health promotion program. You should also consider issues like absenteeism, disability and worker’s compensation to be pieces of the wellness puzzle.
5. Practice what you preach. The key to ensuring worker buy-in is for upper management to lead the wellness program by establishing a positive example. If upper managers are unwilling to participate and address their own health issues, don’t expect many workforce to take the wellness program seriously.
