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.

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?

The Wellness Councils of America Have an Employee Wellness Test for Your Community

Employee wellness program administrators, get ready. The Wellness Councils of America have thrown down the gauntlet.

No, they’re not inviting you to some bare-knuckle confrontation in the parking garage. That would be counter to the principles of the twenty-one-year-old Omaha, NE, non-profit, which is dedicated to encouraging healthier lifestyles, focusing primarily on better employee wellness through the workplace. WELCOA, as it’s more succinctly known, is an organization of like-minded individuals, corporations and Wellness Councils in the United States that defends the health of the American worker.

The corporate wellness challenge? To see if your organization can help catalyze and catapult your community to prestigious “Well City” status.

Are You Fit for “Well City”?

According to WELCOA, Well Cities are those cities that take health management seriously at every level, from the individual citizens to the small non-profits to the largest employers.

In Well Cities, a significant portion of the community has taken a committed approach to employee wellness. Employers are drawing lines in the sand, agreeing to help employees eat healthy, get exercise and de-stress.

Employee Wellness Is a Win-Win Proposition for Employees and Employers

As you may already know from reading the articles in our employee wellness library, a focus on health risk management and proactive employee wellness planning has tangible benefits for both employees and employers. Employee wellness statistics show that better health means better productivity and job satisfaction. Some employees actually consider corporate wellness programs to be compensation - as valuable as a high salary.

But it doesn’t stop there. The numbers also show that employee wellness ROI can be in the range of $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on corporate wellness programs, benefits and initiatives. These savings come in the form of lower absenteeism, less sick time and lower health insurance premiums.

Current Well Cities

The list of WELCOA Well Cities is diverse and exclusive:

• Bangor, ME
• Kanawha Valley, WV
• Kearney, NE
• Gainesville, FL
• Hobart, IN
• Lincoln, NE
• Chattanooga, TN
• Omaha, NE
• Jacksonville, FL

Employee Wellness Mavericks - Get Well City Soon!

We at EmployeeWellnessUSA believe that service-minded employee wellness coordinators should think long and hard about the ancillary benefits of shooting for Well City status in your community. Not only is it a good opportunity to meet like minded organizations and city officials in your area, but it has the potential to galvanize your workforce. Applying for Well City status suddenly makes their health and wellness a matter of civic pride.
For more on employee wellness and Well City, see the WELCOA Well City website. Or simply contact our employee wellness specialists about your corporate fitness plans.

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.

A story from the Jacksonville Daily Record talks about CSX Corp., a company whose headquarters are in Jacksonville, and their major stake in employee wellness. Three years ago, CSX Corp. got on track with employee wellness, investing in a facility and program focusing on health and fitness. To get — and keep — the ball rolling, they initially noted health issues employees were facing and developed a pilot wellness program. From this pilot program, which involved over 6,000 workers, health tests concluded that obesity and cardiac and pulmonary disease were three common health issues found in employees. The same issues are typically true of the American population.

After the pilot wellness program came the development and implementation of health management programs, where employees could be shown how to use lifestyle changes to improve their health and wellness. Soon they found that many employees were truly interested in what was going on — improving their diet, getting fit, meal planning and more. The 10,000 square foot fitness facility located at CSX’s headquarters helps employee wellness in a huge way, and they appreciate it. One employee is quoted in the article as saying, “The company has been totally supportive in providing the best opportunities for its employees to improve the quality of their lives.”

Though it’s easy to think that companies are providing employee wellness programs out of the goodness of their hearts, there’s a reason behind it, employee wellness programs work: For every dollar invested in employee health, there’s a $3 return, says the article. Still, CSX expects to do even better than that.

You’d think it couldn’t get any better than this, really. A company with its own fitness center that genuinely cares about the benefits of employee wellness? Sounds like a joke. But it’s true, and hopefully other companies will board the employee wellness train. Though some companies may see adding a state-of-the-art fitness center as out of their budget, there are definitely other things that can be done. Employee wellness programs can include health screenings, assistance with gym membership fees and even an on-site masseuse a few days per month. Starting an employee wellness program is not that hard, and the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.