Health Wellness ProgramHealth and Wellness Programs and Wellness Program Consulting

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to establish healthy workplaces focused on safety at the worksite and injury prevention for workers.

More recently, programs are designed to support  staff members to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or quitting smoking. Campaigns to raise awareness, educational sessions to broaden knowledge, opportunities to learn new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthy choices are often included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach individuals, since most adult Canadians spend a sizable part of their day at work.

While safety and lifestyle programs are 2 aspects that contribute to the health of employees, workplace wellness is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.

How the workplace impacts health.

Increasingly, it is understood that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When people are satisfied with their job, they are more productive and tend to be healthier. When workers feel that the environment at work is negative, they feel stressed. Stress has a large influence on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productiveness.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified five components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the organization overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that employers must truly care about the wellbeing of their staff members.

Employers today who want to attract and retain good employees have leaders who know the importance between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a company plan.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving employees in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and providing support to balance work and home life.

Employers know that employees are looking for jobs that compensate well, have good benefits, are interesting, and include great health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more important than ever for companies to enhance job satisfaction and be sure that employees enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and employees.

How does workplace wellness advance the business?

A workplace wellness program can help a corporation to:

• attract and keep staff members;
• lower the costs of disability, prescriptions, and absenteeism;
• lower the effects of a stressful workplace;
• reduce health expenditures or keep them contained; and
• better morale by creating a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Company Health Promotion Programs Advance employees?

employees of organizations that have a Worksite Health Promotion Program are likely to have:

• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to better their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and well-being;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased work rate and performance at work;
• reduced personal healthcare costs; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health problems.

Both employers and employees have a responsibility for planning a healthy workplace. Staff Members are expected to arrive at work in great health, and the employer is expected to provide an environment that allows employees to maintain great health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the company’s success.

Workplace wellness is much more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about creating a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of staff members, implementing a positive work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep staff members healthy and happy at work. A great Workplace Wellness Program has an effect on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being.