Wellness is Increased during Summer

Wellness is important year-round; however if your employees haven’t gotten on the wellness bandwagon, then now is the perfect time to get them there.

Summer is an ideal season to get back into shape and improve overall wellness.  The weather is beautiful, employees can get outside and they are motivated by the thought of having to wear clothes with less coverage.  Fitness, or lack of fitness, is apparent in the summer.

Wellness in the Summer has Advantages

There are many advantages to starting a corporate wellness program in the summer.  Employees are more likely to get outside and walk or participate in group activities during the summer than they are in the cooler months of the fall and winter.  The summer months are also a great time to establish a wellness challenge with your employees and celebrate the completion of the challenge with a participant picnic or cookout.  Finally, it always seems easier to eat healthy during the summer with all the fresh vegetables and fruits that are available during this time.

Wellness Program Kick-off

If you are ready to start an employee wellness program and take advantage of the summer months, than EmployeeWellnessUSA can help you.  We recommend following these steps to getting a wellness program started in your office.

• Pick a coordinator for the program who is willing and able to see it through.
• Make sure that you have the support of the corporate leadership.
• Formulate a wellness committee of leaders
• Perform an employee wellness survey to uncover the obstacles and goals of your wellness program
• Establish a good starting point through health risk assessments
• Build the program that fits your goals
• Constantly analyze the program and make improvements and adjustments as needed

Wellness Programs Provides Benefits

Remember to stress to employees that the wellness program is for them.  Employee wellness programs have been found to prevent obesity, cancer, heart disease and hypertension.  Participating in a program that provides all that should be an easy decision for the corporation and for the employees.

Employee Wellness in Prevention of NCD’s

The 61st annual World Health Assembly is taking place this week in Geneva, Switzerland and at this assembly; the World Health Organization (WHO) is presenting its report titled “Preventing Non-communicable Diseases (NCD) in the Workplace through Diet and Physical Activity.”

The report calls for workplace wellness programs to be promoted and implemented worldwide.

Importance of Employee Wellness

The report states that NCD related deaths have surpassed transferable disease related deaths and have become the leading global killers. Examples of NCD’s are heart disease, diabetes and stroke. In 2005, 60% of worldwide projected deaths were caused by non-communicable diseases. They are predicting that this health trend will continue through at least 2030.

Unhealthy diets, excessive caloric intake, lack of physical activity and tobacco use are the major risk factors in the cause of NCD’s. Now more than ever, the understanding of the importance of health and wellness is crucial.

Employee Wellness is Effective Tool

The report states that workplace wellness programs are found to be effective in improving health-related risk factors, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. The report also states that wellness programs will improve the health of employees, improve the corporate image, improve employee morale, reduce employee absences and sick leave, increase employee productivity, and reduce corporate health care costs.

Employee Wellness Monitoring

Finally, the report mentions that to have a successful employee wellness program, monitoring and evaluation through health risk assessments and health outcomes are essential and should be included in the wellness program implementation. The evaluations ensure that the program developed meets the proper needs of the employees. Employees should be reevaluated on an on-going basis to make sure the wellness program is still working, or to see if there are any adjustments that need to be made.

Start an Employee Wellness Program

Employee Wellness USA can get your company started on the right track to reducing the risks of non-communicable diseases within your staff. Please contact one of our health representatives and they will be more than happy to assist you with putting together a free wellness proposal.

Wellness Challenges Are Popping Up Everywhere

Wellness Challenges are definitely hot right now and they are encouraging more and more people to get healthy and live better. Whether it is a city or a school or a social group or even a whole state, competitive spirits are being ignited by the challenge to be the healthiest team. The challenges are usually about a six months to a year in length and they are made up of several teams, these teams all get points for physical activity, selecting healthy foods, and just making better life and health choices overall.

The best part about wellness challenges is even though there really is only way “real” winner; everyone that participates in the challenge is a life winner.

Wellness Challenges Provides Incentive to Get Healthy

Establishing a wellness challenge in your office is a great way to get employees to participate in your established wellness program. Have employees form teams and receive points for everything from attending a corporate health fair to getting a health risk assessment to starting an exercise regimen. At the end of the year, the teams will win prizes based on the number of points they have accumulated.

Wellness Challenge Kick-Off

Contact Employee Wellness USA and have our team come out and provide on-site health screening for all participating employees, so that everyone has a baseline to judge their improvement from. We will then work with you to create a wellness program that will be the foundation of the challenge.

Wellness Challenges Improve Corporate Health

Not only will wellness challenges improve the health of your employees, it will improve the overall health of the corporation by providing benefits such as reduced injuries, reduced frequency of worker’s comp, reduced healthcare costs, better employee attendance, and better corporate morale.

Like we said earlier, everyone is a winner in a wellness challenge!

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.