Starting a Employer Health Promotion Program

The worksite setting is a effective, but often overlooked, component in managing employee health.  Here we will establish some of the best-practices in establishing a Employer Health Promotion Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows employees to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Employer Health Promotion Program that includes a tobacco-free worksite policy increases the likelihood that employees will try to quit tobacco use and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Employer Health Promotion Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase employees’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for employees with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in establishing a Employer Health Promotion Program and worksite setting that promotes employee health.

In an era of rising healthcare costs and fierce competition, businesses have a vested interest in the health of their employees.  Studies have found that, on average, employees with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower healthcare expenses, are absent from work less often, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than employees with unhealthy behaviors.

Employee Wellness Program: Getting Upper Management Support

Employer Health Promotion Program support from the uppermost level of leadership is vital to your success in establishing a culture of health within your worksite. Look for Employer Health Promotion Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not important that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Wellness Program.) You will be relying on this culture-of-health champion to advocate for changes that you recommend and to ensure the organization allocates adequate Employer Health Promotion Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the worksite policies, physical setting, and social norms.

Capture Employer Health Promotion Program Staff and Financing

Starting and maintaining a Employer Health Promotion Program within your organization needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your organization is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Wellness Program.  There are a number of ways to find an individual with the required skills to guide and support your organization’s Employee Wellness Program.

Starting facilities and Employer Health Promotion Program policies, such as those allowing employees to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be costly, but it does require adequate and sustained financing.  If possible, include the creation of a worksite setting that supports the Employer Health Promotion Program as a permanent component of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your organization.

Worker Involvement in the Employer Health Promotion Program

Setting up a representative group of staff members to advise your organization’s Employer Health Promotion Program ensures that improvements in worksite facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of staff members.   In addition, these employees can support as the front-line Employer Health Promotion Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Develop a Employer Health Promotion Program Vision and “Brand”

A Employer Health Promotion Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in bringing a Employer Health Promotion Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your worksite environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Employer Health Promotion Program vision statement summarizes for all (employees and leaders alike) the reasons for establishing a Employee Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between employee health and your organization’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your organization’s Employer Health Promotion Program conveys to employees that the organization’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Select a Employer Health Promotion Program name and logo that resonate with employees. Then use that brand on all Employer Health Promotion Program communications with employees about the policies, facilities and programs your organization offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Evaluate Your Existing Employer Health Promotion Program Situation

Exactly how your organization creates a Employer Health Promotion Program that promotes healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your organization and employee population.

Evaluate how the current worksite facilities, policies, and unwritten norms support — or discourage — healthy behaviors.

Gather information on the health and health-related behaviors of your employee population.  The most common method is by using a validated health risk assessment. If you don’t have data specific to your employees, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data.  Note: Information on staff members’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Set Employer Health Promotion Program Priorities and Goals

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current worksite setting to determine your organization’s Employer Health Promotion Program priorities. From those Employer Health Promotion Program priorities, define clear and measurable Employer Health Promotion Program objectives for improving employee health and your organization’s culture. Well written objectives will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Select Employer Health Promotion Program Strategies

Focus your organization’s Employer Health Promotion Program resources (time, energy and money) on tactics that are most likely to produce results:  a rise in healthy eating, a rise in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of research studies and has identified the Employer Health Promotion Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Employer Health Promotion Program tactics are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Employer Health Promotion Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Employer Health Promotion Program Strategies

Once you’ve chosen your Employer Health Promotion Program Strategies, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Employer Health Promotion Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your organization.  Work plans keep your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to start a Employer Health Promotion Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Educate and Communicate About the Employer Health Promotion Program

Ensure employees are aware of the Employer Health Promotion Program opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Employer Health Promotion Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with employees without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Employer Health Promotion Program Results

At the same time that you plan your Employer Health Promotion Program Strategies, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to start systems for collecting information — before you implement a Employer Health Promotion Program strategy rather than as an afterthought.   Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in employee morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in rates of absenteeism or healthcare claims.

Report both your Employer Health Promotion Program successes in building a healthy worksite environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides employees time for walking during the workday), and Employer Health Promotion Program successes in getting staff members to take charge of their health (a rise in the number of employees who contacted the stop-smoking program, or a rise in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).