Employee wellness programs: worth the wellness

Employee wellness programs are as close to a slam-dunk proposition as you’ll find in health management, according to most researchers and corporate wellness experts.

But if you have skeptics in your organization who are questioning the time and expense of starting an employee wellness program, you may be wary too. Aren’t employee wellness programs subject to the adage “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”?

Employee wellness programs are capital-free projects

Fortunately, employee wellness programs don’t require a big investment. Like any other corporate project, mismanagement and “death by committee” can inflate the cost of employee wellness programs, but it’s hard to spend too much time and money on them. After all, employee wellness programs are mostly informational in nature. Flyers, e-mails, maps, and employee wellness health fairs can only cost so much. There’s no expensive, specialized employee wellness program machinery.

Employee wellness statistics on successful programs are particularly persuasive. Unlike many cost-saving measures, employee wellness programs actually add to employee satisfaction - but they also reduce health insurance premiums and employee absenteeism.

What are some common employee wellness programs?

Employee wellness programs run the gamut, depending on your workplace demographic, from exercise for health patients to nutritional initiatives that encourage workers to replace greasy snack foods with healthy fare like dried fruit and shelled nuts.

Here are some examples of employee wellness programs:

• ergonomics
• cardiovascular disease testing
• employee safety
• health risk assessments
• walking wellness
• sexual health tests
• drug testing

Ask us your employee wellness program questions

We welcome your employee wellness program inquiries. We’d be happy to advise you on building your employee wellness programs, without obligation. We also believe we’re your best employee wellness program partner. With our proprietary online health management system and our experience crafting employee wellness programs, we’d love to help you! We can even come to your campus to perform health screenings. Don’t hesitate to contact us with your employee wellness program needs.

Health fair activities put the spotlight on employee wellness

A health fair is a brilliant way to shake your workforce out of the doldrums and into better awareness of their health and wellness. A health fair brings your organization together to discuss employee wellness, examine health insurance and “cafeteria” insurance plans, explore health savings accounts, publicize corporate wellness programs and share success stories and challenges.

Some common health fair desired outcomes include:

• better awareness of the health services and resources available to employees, both from their employer and from local, state, regional and national health services;
• increased motivation for improving health behavior
• increased participation in employee wellness programs, commuter and carshare programs and health savings accounts
• better awareness of personal health status through health screenings, health fair activities, displays, handouts, and demonstrations, and
• better information on what employees are seeking from their employer’s health management initiatives, and which employees are interested in participating.

Planning a health fair

Planning a health fair is a lot like starting an employee wellness program on a smaller scale. Just like an employee wellness program, your health fair will need publicity, logistical planning, programming, targeted goals, in-house marketing and of course, executive approval. Festive touches like free food, kid-friendly activities, live music, art displays, talent shows and other community-minded fun will help cement the appeal of your health fair and ensure that the health fair becomes a welcomed, annual event.

You can find some health fair planning tips at the Family and Consumer Sciences site of Texas A&M University. These health fair tips are aimed more at community and non-profit organizers, but you can discover many useful health fair ideas at the site. And of course, don’t be afraid to contact EmployeeWellnessUSA at 1-800-299-7226 x228 for no-obligation health fair planning assistance and advice.

Health fairs are often your best recruiter

Many employee wellness planners find that health fairs are the primary reason why employees sign up for walking wellness programs, health savings accounts and other pro-employee corporate wellness programs. We at EmployeeWellnessUSA strongly encourage you to consider a health fair so your employees don’t miss out on these corporate wellness benefits.

Don’t forget - not only do employees value these programs highly, but the increased energy and decreased sick leave associated with wellness programs also saves your company money. The corporate wellness statistics are clear - healthier companies work harder and pay less in health insurance premiums.

Combine your health fair with onsite health screenings

You may also want to consider using your sitewide health fair as an occasion to organize an onsite health screening from EmployeeWellnessUSA. Our trained and licensed staff are well-versed in making health screenings painless for you. We come to your health fair, schedule testing with your employees via email, organize the data securely and deliver personal and aggregate reports to you and your employees. Our proprietary online health management system takes care of all the details, leaving you free to enjoy the health fair.

Have fun with your health fair - and don’t hesitate to contact EmployeeWellnessUSA if you would like our assistance with your health fair preparations!

Health risk assessments help you quantify employee health

Health risk assessments (HRAs) are an important tool to help you isolate the value of strong corporate wellness programs. In our twenty-plus years of health testing and analysis as EmployeeWellnessUSA and parent company HeathcheckUSA, we’ve found that executive leadership is best at assessing risk in a rigorous, bottom-line-oriented manner — which is exactly what health risk assessments do for you.

Health risk assessments: what’s an HRA?

HRAs (health risk assessments) got you mystified? They’re a bit of a puzzle because there’s no unified standard for health risk assessments. A health risk assessment is both a procedure and a document, too, depending on the context — you must answer questions and ideally undergo some simple biometric data collection to develop a document that describes what’s good and bad about your current state of health and wellness.

To add confusion to the situation, there’s a heritage of industrial health risk management to the term “health risk assessment.” Talk to an OSHA inspector about health risk assessments and she’ll assume you’re referring to an analysis of contaminants and industrial chemicals in a factory or manufacturing facility.

Health risk assessments: a typical HRA

However, even though there’s no government or agency mandate telling you what should be in your company’s health risk assessments, the employee wellness professionals at EmployeeWellnessUSA agree that a complete, comprehensive health risk assessment is aimed at producing a concrete baseline of a person’s health, and includes most of these features:

• a blood pressure test to find possible cardiovascular disease,
• a blood type test so the employee can receive prompt transfusions if an accident does happen to occur at the workplace,
• a cancer test to detect this insidious killer before it can cause harm,
• a blood glucose diabetes test that can detect this common disease, and
• a thorough investigation of the employee’s health management status.

The investigation ideally would analyze the employee’s:

• lifestyle factors,
• symptoms and ailments,
• pharmaceutical needs and prescriptions,
• functional abilities,
• quality of life,
• self-efficacy,
• fitness proclivities and interest level,
• clinical information,
• and fitness biometrics.

Health risk assessments: what next?

If your organization is pondering the costs and benefits of health risk assessments, contact a wellness expert at EmployeeWellnessUSA. We’d be happy to provide you with no-obligation advice about how to go about planning a corporate wellness program and improving the health of your workforce while augmenting morale and reducing your health insurance costs at the same time.

Here are a few more health risk assessment articles that you may find useful:

• Online health risk assessments
• Health risk assessment vendors
• Health risk assessment benefits
• Health risk assessment surveys