Posts Tagged ‘employee health’

Wellness Proposals Aid in Decision Making

Monday, May 5th, 2008

What is a Wellness Proposal?

You probably have seen this term many times and wondered what exactly it means. A wellness proposal is a proposal put together by a wellness company, such as EmployeeWellnessUSA.com, that makes suggestions for what type of wellness programs you should choose, what tools you will need to accomplish your corporation’s wellness goals, and costs associated with it.

Wellness Proposals Assist Human Resource Departments

A wellness proposal is a great thing to have in hand when HR Departments go to upper management to request funding for a wellness program. It will provide necessary stats and trends, background information, and costs that will enable the HR Department to fully present their case. Upper management will appreciate the preparedness and the research that has gone into your wellness request.

Wellness Proposals Lead to Better Wellness Programs

A well thought out wellness proposal can lead to a better wellness program, because the building blocks will already be in place. Wellness proposals will guarantee that your corporation gets the proper wellness program established. Wellness programs can vary greatly, but when your employees ask, you can tell them that they generally include the following:

  • Walking Wellness,” which incentivizes employees to take walking breaks around the vicinity of their workplace.
  • Company sports teams, yoga classes and massage therapists at the workplace.
  • Dietary advice, weight-loss and healthy cooking classes, stress management sessions, and either an employee wellness resources column in the employee newsletter or a wellness newsletter.
  • “Take the stairs” initiatives to show how stair-walking can improve health.

How to Get a Wellness Proposal

You can get a wellness proposal by contacting an Employee Wellness USA corporate wellness representative. They will ask you all sorts of questions regarding your corporate goals, employee goals, budgets, etc, to assist them in putting together your personalized wellness proposal. The best of all, at Employee Wellness USA, it’s FREE. So what are you waiting for?

Employee Wellness During Cold and Flu Season

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Maintaining employee wellness during cold and flu season can be a challenge for any company. The average adult can get up to four colds in one year, and hundreds of thousands are hospitalized every year for flu complications. From December to March, there are more employees out of the office due to illness, and others who barely made it to the office and can hardly think over their constant coughing and sneezing.

Prevention is the Key to Employee Wellness

Prevention is the key to maintaining good health in the workplace and increasing overall employee wellness. Fighting infection after the cold and flu epidemics hit is a losing battle and can best be combated with early action, such as implementing a corporate wellness program in the office for good health year-round.

Keeping the Office Germ-free During Cold and Flu Season

The typical office is the perfect breeding grounds for influenza or the cold virus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that there are higher chances for the spread of infection during winter because people spend more time indoors. In an office, this risk is increased by cubicles, bringing many people into a close space. On-site health screenings conducted regularly as part of an overall health management program will increase the chances of employee wellness year round, and especially during cold and flu season.

Education Can Increase Employee Wellness During Cold and Flu Season

Educating employees about various ways to stay healthy during cold and flu season may help prevent the spread of any sickness to the entire office. Hand washing is a crucial component in maximizing employee wellness, as bacteria collects on keyboards, mouses, around the water cooler and next to the community coffee pot. As employees shake hands, infection may be passed, multiplying the chance of getting a cold or coming down with the flu. Hand washing and anti-bacterial cleaners for surfaces can help reduce the spread of sickness.

Employee wellness is possible during cold and flu season. With Employee Wellness USA, your office can reach one step closer to immunity from sickness during cold and flu season.

Employee wellness programs

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

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:

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 risk assessments

Monday, November 5th, 2007

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:

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