Archive for the ‘Small Biz Wellness 101’ Category
Communicating Your Wellness Program
Four Steps to Successfully Communicate Your Small Biz Wellness Program – Prt. 2
We already know that offering wellness programs are important and even necessary, but it’s not enough. When it comes to motivating your small biz employees to change their behavior, you have to communicate your wellness program, and communicate it well. This is the second of 4 articles in which we’ll cover four – “must” – steps your small biz must take to make sure you’re getting your message across to your employees.
As we talked about in “Part One” of Successfully Communicating Your Small Biz Wellness Program, the first thing you need to do is take a look at all the different things you use to communicate to your employees. By assessing how you are currently doing things, you can get a good an idea of how well your wellness program is being communicated.
Your Wellness Program Communications Checklist
Remember to check back as we have two more “steps” to go. The following best practices will help organizations develop an effective wellness communications strategy:
Step 1: Communicate frequently. Ongoing communication with employees is key to creating awareness, building understanding and influencing behavior.
Step 2: Come Up with a Communications Strategy. Next, you need to come up with a plan around the issues that were identified during the the assessment process.
- Come up with some set short and long-term goals. You need to really map out what you want to get out of the program. Set participation goals for the short-term (e.g., 75 percent of the employee population takes a health-risk assessment within the first three months). Results-oriented goals should be set for the long term (e.g., 50 percent of smokers complete a smoking-cessation program).
- Know your Small Biz’s Culture. The better the communications are tailored to your employees, the more effective the communications will be. Your goal is for your employees to take action (e.g., target smokers by placing communications in locations where they tend to congregate).
- Know your audience. The demographics of your employees should pretty much determine “what kind” of communication campaign you have. For example, a poster or flier that some may think is offensive, might “hit home” for others and cause them to take action immediately.
- Build a wellness brand. This may include a name, logo, color scheme and/or an eye-catching message. The goal is to grab the employees’ attention with something that is action oriented.
- Decide whether incentives will play a role. Once again, it is important to know your audience and what will motivate them. A health condition that is not life-threatening and involves maintenance or prevention could land low on an employee’s priority list. In such cases, incentives can help make the issue more of a priority. Incentives can include premium reductions, cash, gift cards and individual recognition (such as diplomas). Remember that incentives are not always necessary and may create an additional administrative burden.
- Select the media to be used to communicate the wellness program. Look at your audience and find out what will make your employees pay attention and take action. One good strategy is to see where employees spend their free time at work and place print materials accordingly. It is important to determine whether the majority of employees have computer access and will respond to electronic campaigns; if so, the focus can be online.
Implementing a small biz wellness program for your employees will end up controlling health-care costs, while improving their health. At the core of every small business wellness program is the drive to change employee behavior.
The success or failure of the wellness program comes down to the degree to which your employees respond to your program’s efforts to change their behavior towards healthier lifestyles. To help with that behavior change, you really need to review how your small biz wellness program is communicated to employees. Without effective communications the best wellness program in the world is not going to succeed.
The Right Place at the Right Time
Four Steps to Successfully Communicate Your Small Biz Wellness Program – Prt. 1
Whether it’s the “still smoking for more than 30 years” or “the 50 pounds since high school”, that 45-year-old employee of yours knows that it’s “bad” for him, yet he still hasn’t changed his lifestyle behaviors. Although you might have run smoking-cessation campaigns or weight-management programs over the years, it’s not so much the frequency of the message that matters as it is having it in the right place at the right time.
We already know that offering wellness programs are important and even necessary, but it’s not enough. When it comes to motivating your small biz employees to change their behavior, you have to communicate your wellness program, and communicate it well. This is the first of 4 articles in which we’ll cover four – “must” – steps your small biz must take to make sure you’re getting your message across to your employees.
Step 1: Conduct a Communications Assessment
The first thing you need to do is take a look at all the different communications “vehicles” you use to communicate to your employees. This “inventory” can give you an idea of how well your wellness program is being communicated.
Is your information readily accessible for all your employees and easy to understand? Are communications consistent, recognizable and well-organized? And finally, do your communication campaigns support your overall wellness goals?
For example, if an employee wants to lose weight, does he or she have to dig through your benefits plan to determine what coverage is available? Does he or she have to search your weight-management programs to find support courses? Does he or she have to check the cafeteria bulletin board for a weight-management meeting or find out if coaching is even available for weight loss?
Once you’ve figured out what’s what with your communication process, it’s a good idea to survey your employees to learn what they think about your “wellness communications”.
It is important to find out how they get information about the programs that are available. What works and what does not. What is most valuable to them and what they want to know more about. Depending on how many employees you have, you can survey them with written or online surveys. Both are helpful but may be open to interpretation. Putting a focus group together is even better at getting vital, first-hand and targeted feedback. If you do it right, a good focus group will give you opinions and impressions that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
Y
our Wellness Program Communications Checklist
Remember to check back as we have three other “steps” to cover. The following best practices will help organizations develop an effective wellness communications strategy:
Step 1: Communicate frequently. Ongoing communication with employees is key to creating awareness, building understanding and influencing behavior.
Implementing a small biz wellness program for your employees will end up controlling health-care costs, while improving their health. At the core of every small business wellness program is the drive to change employee behavior. The success or failure of the wellness program comes down to the degree to which your employees respond to your program’s efforts to change their behavior towards healthier lifestyles. To help with that behavior change, you really need to review how your small biz wellness program is communicated to employees. Without effective communications the best wellness program in the world is not going to succeed.
Promote Healthy Eating with Onsite Signage
Healthy Eating Signage
Promote healthy eating and nutrition at your small business by posting motivational signs about nutrition, and healthy eating in the cafeteria or break area. Motivational signs can act as both a reminder and decision prompt when posted in any common area like the cafeteria or break area.
Encouraging healthful eating near the point-of-purchase of foods can influence decisions. Signage posted in various locations presents reminders for on and off -site eating habits.
Small Biz Action Steps
- Motivational signs can be posted in a variety of places. Unconventional locations usually have more impact. Examples are trash cans, walls, ceilings, vending machines, and restroom doors.
- Don‘t limit your signage to the cafeteria. Post signs in other places such as break rooms, hallways, elevators, restrooms, etc.
- Posters are not the only possibility. Try making table tents, window signs, flyers, or hanging displays. Laminating the information helps to keep it in good shape longer. Depending on the size/type, framing or mounting on foam core also lengthens the life of the sign and adds to the professionalism of the message.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promote Healthy Eating Options
Healthy Eating Options
Promote healthy eating options at your small business by offering appealing, low-cost, healthful food options, such as fruits and vegetables, juices, and low-fat dairy products in vending machines, snack bars, break rooms, and/or cafeterias. Offering appealing, low-cost, healthful food options at the worksite is one way to promote healthful eating to employees. Vending machines are a quick and convenient way for employees to purchase these types of food. If cafeterias or snack bars are not available, vending machines may be the only option for employees to purchase foods and beverages.
Small Biz Action Steps
- Step 1: Identify employee representative (s) to assess the need and interest in changing vending machine offerings.
- Step 2: Conduct a vending machine inventory asking employees to determine their interest in having healthful foods available in machines. Identify preferences for vending machine items such as fruits, vegetables, milk, water, energy bars, pretzels, etc.
- Step 3: Identify worksite staff that deal with vending companies. Identify the date of the vending machine contract renewal and schedule your plans toinitiate changes with vending machine companies several months in advance of this renewal date.
- Step 4: Meet with a vendor representative to:
- Explain the 5 A Day campaign (i.e. focus on environmental changes work to facilitate dietary change); share the program guidelines.
- Share the results of the survey that support employees. desire for healthful food options with the vendor.
- Provide the vending company with suggestions for healthful food choices and determine which are appropriate to include.
- Seek permission from the vendor to label fruit and vegetable products with nutrition information on the vending machine.
- Explore opportunities for reducing the cost of healthful food options.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promoting Physical Activity with a Bicycle Freindly Workplace
Bicycle Friendly Workplace
Promote a healthy small business environment and/or policy to encourage health and wellness providing bicycle racks in safe, convenient, and accessible
locations.
The benefits of providing a bicycle-friendly workplace includes:
- Bicycling can be a safe, healthy behavior.
- Placing bicycle racks in prominent locations may encourage people to ride to your location.
- Bicycle parking is inexpensive to provide compared to automobile parking.
- Studies have proven that people who exercise in the morning are more alert when they get to work.
Your Small Biz Action Steps
- Contact your facilities manager and/or city government to find out if a specific type of bicycle rackis required or if there are specific locations that bicycle racks must be installed on your property.
- If there is no standard rack, look for the inverted-U rack. This type of rack offers the best of short-term cycle parking and is widely regarded as the recommended standard.
- Determine a location that is convenient to access on a bicycle. Ideal locations are visible, well lit, and close to the building entrance. Make sure that curb ramps are in place so the bicyclist can ride directly to the rack. Keep in mind that bicyclists will park as close as they can to their destination. If your building has multiple entrances, make sure you install bike racks in multiple locations.
- To encourage bicycling, ask your local police department about bicycle registration. Many cities offer to engrave a number on bicycles so that if they are ever stolen, they can be traced back to the owner. You could host a bicycling event at your worksite and have the police come to register bicycles.
- To encourage bicycle commuting, your worksite should have showers, locker room, and storage for bicycles.
- Advertise the location of all bike racks to employees.
- Offer bicycle safety training on-site. Talk to departments of transportation, local bicycle vendors or police officers about making a presentation about rules of the road and bicycle safety tips.
- Give free or low-cost helmets and/or retro reflective gear to bicycle commuters.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promoting Physical Activity through Onsite Fitness Classes
Exercise and Fitness Classes
Promote physical activity at your small business by offering on-site fitness programs, such as group classes or personal training.
The benefits of an on-site fitness program includes:
- Increased employee satisfaction and health
- Informal building of company networks
- Increased employee engagement and energy
- Building of positive company culture
- Potential reduction in overall healthcare costs
- Potential reduction in employee absences
On-site fitness programs can include:
- Having a group fitness classes led by an instructor
- Having group fitness classes following a fitness video
- Providing a dedicated room with fitness basics such as stretching mats, exercise balls, small hand weights, exercise videos, a TV, VCR or DVD player, etc.
- Walking club
Your Small Biz Action Steps
- Survey employees and find out what type of classes they want.
- Find an appropriate existing space such as a conference or meeting room.
- Partner with a local health club for fitness class ideas and for qualified instructors. See Appendix C for more detailed information on instructor credentials.
- Purchase TV, VCR or DVD player, and fitness videos.
- Makes sure you know the potential liability issues might be. Contact your employer‘s legal department regarding participant waivers, necessary insurance, and any other liability concerns.
- If available, provide shower facilities for employees who want to bicycle/run to work or exercise over the lunch hour.
- Provide bike racks or other bike storage facilities.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promote Healthy Eating with Wellness Incentives
Healthy Eating Incentives
Promote healthy eating and nutrition at your small business by providing incentives for participation in nutrition or weight management programs.
Most wellness programs are designed to change a health behavior such as increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables or losing weight. Health behavior is difficult to change, and therefore, wellness program coordinators must recognize that people often need external motivators and reasons to change. Incentives generate interest in the wellness program, offer rewards for changed behavior, and promote the company‘s belief in and commitment to wellness.
Incentives are useful and effective because of their direct impact on the universal human need for personal recognition and reward. An incentive may be defined as an anticipated positive or desirable reward that influences individual or group performance.
By reinforcing behaviors and rewarding results, successful program outcomes can be achieved. Among other things, incentives can be expected to: 1) increase program participation and completion rates, 2) provide a purpose for participants to make health behavior changes,
and 3) improve long-term adherence to a behavior.
Small Biz Action Steps
In order for an incentive to be effective, the participant needs to find it desirable and worth the effort. Finding out what incentives motivate your participants can be accomplished in many ways including preference surveys, focus groups, structured interviews, pilot testing different incentives with small groups, or just randomly asking key people what they think.
Experts recommend that the incentives be kept small while achieving program goals. Small but effective incentives are always more cost-effective. Smaller external incentives are more likely to help individuals internalize their new behaviors and maintain them over the long term without ongoing external rewards. The bottom line is that participation rates will increase if an incentive is offered.
Types of Incentives can be Categorized as Follows:
- Achievement awards. Verbal praise and a pat on the back are motivational to some, but a token of recognition of achievement may offer more. A colorful certificate to congratulate an employee for achieving a health-related goal is one example.
- Public recognition. Most people love to see their names in print. Publish the names of wellness program participants in your employee newsletter. This will honor the employees who have attempted to make positive lifestyle changes and can motivate others to do the same.
- Merchandise. Award a t-shirt, canvas bag, gift certificate/gift card, or an AM/FM radio to participants who sign up and/or complete a program. Your company logo may be imprinted on these items as well.
- Monetary rewards. Offer an employee $10 for completing a wellness program. Discount health insurance premiums for participants. Reimburse employees for attending a health-related educational training seminar. Food. Offer beverages and healthy snacks to employees who participate in on-site wellness programs. Use gift certificates to a local restaurant or grocery stores as door prizes. Entertainment. Hold a drawing for movie tickets, sporting events tickets, or health food store gift certificates for participants of wellness programs.
- Time off. Allow employees to take an extended lunch break or a half-day of leave for completing a long-term, company-sponsored wellness program.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promoting Physical Activity through Workday Workouts
Workday Workouts
Promote physical activity at your small business by Offer flexible work hours to allow for physical activity during the day.
Your corporate physical activity strategy needs to reflect and compliment your corporate plan, matching your goals, objectives, needs, and resources. Employees who do physical activity on a regular basis make up a more fit and healthy workforce. The benefit is having a workforce that is more efficient and loses fewer days from illness and stress. Individuals improve their self-esteem, increase their personal satisfaction, have less psychological stress, can relax more easily, and show greater mental alertness.
Having flexible work hours allows employees to participate in specific physical activities before work, during the lunch hour, or even during the work day.
Your Small Biz Action Steps
- Assist management in developing a corporate policy statement supporting flexible work hours and distribute it to all managers and staff.
- Define supervisory responsibilities in the policy for approving work hour flexibility for physical activity while maintaining staff coverage and workflow.
- Offer flexible working hours allowing people to arrive at work a little later or leave a little earlier to help them add physical activity to their day.
- Provide and maintain male and female locker rooms that will support employees in midday physical activity. Locker rooms could include showers, hair dryers, towels, etc.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promote Healthy Eating & Nutrition by Making Water Available
Water Availibility
Promote healthy eating and nutrition at your small business by making water available throughout the day. Drinking water is essential for keeping your body functioning normally and preventing dehydration. Water, one of the most important and often overlooked nutrients, plays many roles in body processes. Water regulates body temperature, transports nutrients to cells, carries waste products away, helps cushion joints, protects organs and tissues, and helps in weight loss efforts.
Dehydration, the loss of body water, can have a detrimental effect. Dehydration can begin as thirst, but can quickly progress to effects such as fatigue, headache, dizziness, weakness, and delirium, and in the worst case, even death. In Colorado‘s dry climate, it is always important to drink water regularly. It‘s even more important when being physically active.
Water is a great alternative to soda and high-calorie beverages that offer little nutritional value. Many vending machines in the workplace are fully stocked with soda and sugar-filled beverages. Providing water at company functions and making it more available and visible to employees may help them choose water more often.
Small Biz Action Steps
- Educate employees about the importance of water and hydration through the company newsletter, emails, and posters/table tents in the cafeteria or around the building.
- Incorporate the message of drinking more water into existing health and fitness programs offered in the worksite. Encourage employees to set goals to drink more water along with other health and fitness goals.
- Make water available through water fountains and water coolers in break rooms, hallways, and lobbies. If budgetary constraints do not allow for purchase of water, initiate a program to get employees to contribute a small monthly donation that would fund bottled drinking water.
- Serve bottled water or water from pitchers at staff meetings as an alternative to coffee and soda. Try adding lemons and/or limes; toss in some fresh mint leaves; or mix in a bit of orange juice to add variety.
- Make water available in vending machines. Discuss with the vending representative the potential for adding water to the beverage inventory.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.
Promoting Physical Activity through Corporate Fitness Memberships
Corporate Fitness Memberships
Promote physical activity at your small business by exploring discounted memberships at local health clubs, recreation centers, or YMCAs.
Discounted memberships encourage employees to start regular physical fitness programs, allowing them to save money. By participating, they can build outside relationships with co-workers, relieve stress, and get rewarded for maintaining a good level of physical fitness. Discounted memberships are also a good alternative to creating an on-site fitness facility.
Your Small Biz Action Steps
- Contact individual health clubs (commercial fitness centers, fee-based, nonprofit agency fitness centers, and hospital-affiliated fitness/wellness centers) to inquire about corporate rate packages.
- Evaluate which clubs participate in company discounts and offer the best programs and amenities.
- Try to find a program that extends the discount to family members.
- Provide the human resources department with all of the information.
- Create a menu of fitness centers for employees to use as a resource.
- Promote the program/discount to employees.
Get Started Today!
You CAN control healthcare costs for you and your employees with practical and affordable wellness tools and strategies that will ultimately help them create a lifetime of healthy habits. For more information on any our small business wellness programs or services, Contact Us today and find out we can help.