Good Corporate Wellness Starts with Personal Health and Wellness

Personal health and wellness might be the fatal flaw in your corporate wellness plan. Is personal health and wellness part of your strategy? Does corporate wellness stop when your employees leave the office?

Give Your Employees Personal Health and Wellness Continuity

If employees don’t have the tools to pursue wellness on a personal level, then it becomes easy for them to “fall off the wagon” and slide back into a less healthy lifestyle. If you have a walking wellness program, for example, it should encourage employees to build walking routes near their homes, perhaps with the cooperation of the neighborhood association or coworkers who live in the neighborhood.

Personal Health and Wellness Means Never Being “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Your corporate wellness program coordinators should have “vacation wellness” as part of their job scope. In other words, you don’t want corporate wellness to stop at the boundaries of the corporate campus. Instead, integrate personal health and wellness with your employee wellness programs.

For example, what if Human Resources were to give out a personal health and wellness wallet card whenever someone goes on vacation or sabbatical? With some card stock and a small laminator, these cards could be easily customized to remind the employee of the employee wellness programs that he or she is currently participating in, making it easier for them to continue with their health and wellness on a personal level when away from the familiar environs of the office.

This benefits your corporate wellness programs in two ways:

• it reduces the chance that the employee will come back to the office feeling unfit, overwhelmed and unable to resume their health and wellness activities; and
• it shows that their employer is just as invested in their personal health and wellness as they are

Like a marathon, personal health and wellness is a long-haul commitment and it’s difficult for any one person to do in isolation. Simply put, it’s easier to maintain your health and wellness when you know others are depending on you and watching your personal performance. It’s easier to stick to an exercise program when you have a jogging partner who wakes you up when you oversleep, or spots you when you’re lifting weights.

Similarly, it’s easier to stick to your personal health and wellness plan when you know your employer is supporting you and wishing you the best.

Don’t Dictate Personal Health and Wellness

Just as corporate wellness surveys serve a vital function in building a health and wellness plan at work, it’s critical that you involve employees in designing an off-site personal health and wellness strategy. No one enjoys being dictated to, but everyone enjoys having assistance in tacking tough problems. Make it clear that employees are in charge of their personal wellness. Your role as their health management partner is to support, advise, counsel, provide resources and dole out information.

Of course, don’t forget that part of your personal health and wellness responsibility is to provide good health risk assessment baselines so employees can proceed safely on the road to better fitness. For that purpose, and for any health and wellness questions you may have, think of EmployeeWellnessUSA as your health management partner. Don’t hesitate to call our health and wellness experts about how we can help with onsite health screenings or simply for obligation-free advice.

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.

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 screening: knowledge is power

A health screening is one of the most important tools in the corporate wellness toolbox for improving employee health and wellness. However, it’s hard to look beyond the simple pragmatic details of an on-site health screening to understand its power for unlocking improved employee wellness, lower health insurance premiums and reduced absenteeism. Just as small, systematic changes can revolutionize an individual’s fitness, seemingly minor systematic changes within your organization - like regular health screenings - can revolutionize the fitness of the individuals who collectively are your company’s finest asset.

How health screening works

“How does one little blood test do all that?” you may be asking. Yes, a health screening looks like a simple blood test, but the fact is that a well-administered and carefully organized group blood test can enable a health screening that will isolate dozens of risk factors for you and your employees.

Health screenings, such as the health risk assessments (HRAs) performed by EmployeeWellnessUSA, produce an easy-to-read series of reports on the health hazards that threaten your workforce. Depending on the health risk tests that you choose, your health screenings can point out possible problems posed by high blood pressure, obesity, osteoporosis, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other common health issues. Health screenings can also highlight dangerous levels of toxic workplace substances or industrial chemicals. Lastly, a thorough health screening, whether an on-site health screening at your campus or one arranged at one of our nationwide testing laboratories, can test for health risk management issues with illegal drugs like amphetamines, marijuana, heroin and cocaine.

The advantages of health screenings with EmployeeWellnessUSA

If you elect to work with EmployeeWellnessUSA when performing your company’s health screening, you’ll have some advantages that will make your job easier.

We’re veterans of distributed laboratory testing and our services have been written up in a variety of national publications, including TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. We bring that experience to every corporate client who chooses to partner with us for health screening.

We also use our proprietary online health management system to perform health screenings. Our system allows us to deliver online scheduling of employee tests, email reminders that work the way you do, confidential medical reports (aggregated for you, and individualized for your employees), online consent forms, health surveys, secure data handling and more. You can rely on our experience when planning your company’s health screening.

Talking to EmployeeWellnessUSA about health screening

Early detection makes a world of difference for almost all major diseases, including the big killers like cardiovascular disease and cancer. Don’t delay in setting up your organization’s health screening. The corporate wellness statistics are clear about the benefits of implementing wellness programs like health screenings. It’s worth it - both as a fiscal decision and as an initiative that will be emotionally satisfying for you and your employees. Please contact our health screening specialists for a no-obligation chat.