Corporate E-Learning

Health and wellness are important aspects in anyone’s life. Having employees who are happy and healthy is important in a company. Employees who are happy are more productive, and stay employed longer, with the company. Having a health and wellness program to help those employees stay healthy helps you as an employer, and the employee.

Understanding the meaning of a health and wellness program is the first step in effectively creating one. Every year companies spend massive amounts of money on health related issues, that could be avoided. A health and wellness program can help alleviate some of these expenses. Let’s explore together how a health and wellness program could help you, and your company!

On average, an employee spends a third of the day at work, which is a lot of time! With all of the time we spend at work, health and wellness programs give the company a unique opportunity to enrich the lives of its employees by promoting good health. There are many different types of health and wellness programs that a company can adopt. You will need to evaluate which programs are needed for your company in order to optimize the best results. Here are just a few of the more major health and wellness programs that you could implement in your company

There are many different programs you can utilize to promote the health and wellness of your employees. This particular section is going to focus on Health Behavior Programs. These programs are used to improve the routine behaviors of an individual to increase their health and wellbeing. These types of programs should be voluntary, but highly recommended.

Having health screenings and maintenance programs for your employees can really boost their awareness about potential harmful conditions. These programs can also assist in early detection, prevent conditionings from worsening, and possibly prevent them all together. Catching those conditions early helps the patient, but also helps lower the health care claim costs to the company.

Mental disorders are becoming more prominent in the world today. As a nation, we have finally started to recognize mental conditions as more than character flaws, but the stigma still remains for many people. Like in physical health, mental health can decline rapidly if not treated properly. This particular section is not just for serious mental ailments, but for daily mental issues. We all have stress, depression, and anxiety from time to time. Giving your employees support through tough times is a crucial part of health and wellness. Having a supportive friend helps, but having a whole company support you can help you get back up after a fall.

By this time you have gained a little more knowledge on the many options for a health and wellness program. I hope you are excited by the different ways you can help your employees, and company. There are still a few more things that need to be straightened out before starting the design of your health and wellness program. Finding out for sure what the need in your company is will help the future program you implement grow and thrive. In this module, we shall discuss some of the items to add to your to-do list.

At this point you should have a good understanding of the types of programs, and what they are. You have done your research and see what you need to factor into your plan. Now its time to get started with creating the program. A well planned program could be the determining factor between success and failure. A great health and wellness plan can increase productivity and morale, but a poor one can decrease them.

After all of the hard work and research is complete, it’s time to implement the program. This is the launch point for your plan, and if done right, can lead to success! According to the National Business Coalition on Health, Caterpillar Inc. reduced premiums by $75 a month for employees who complete a health-risk assessment; up to 90% of eligible employees participate. There are still a few more tasks on your to-do list. The tasks are fairly basic, but very important. To have a successful launch, you will need to get management support, test out your program, advertise the program, and acquire incentives.

You should be completely aware by now that a healthy employee means a healthy bottom line. Creating an environment where health is an area of concern can help keep your employees healthy. This type of environment we have named a “culture of wellness”. A culture of wellness is a collective set of values that is geared towards health. There are many ways to create a culture of wellness, but in this section, we will discuss some of the more common ones.

After you have successfully implemented your employee health and wellness program, it’s time to just sit back and relax. Right? Wrong! Not evaluating your health and wellness program is like driving a car blindfolded. It may go smooth at first, but eventually you’re going to crash! It is your duty to check that the program is running smoothly and making progress. If it’s not going the way you anticipated, then you may need to make some adjustments.

Although this workshop is coming to a close, we hope that your journey to creating an effective health and wellness program is just beginning. Please take a moment to review and update your action plan. This will be a key tool to guide your progress in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. We wish you the best of luck on the rest of your travels!