Health Wellness ProgramHealth and Wellness Programs and Wellness Program Consulting

The program design options depend on the goals/objectives and desired outcomes of your program.  If your intention is to help workers make a change behavior, decrease risk factors, or save healthcare money then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be significant to support that design.  

There are different wellness program design levels depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining similar results, and therefore ought not be confused.  For example, planning activities such as an employee health & wellness fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having pamphlets available do not usually result in behavior change, but may increase awareness on a topic.  If the goal is behavior change then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Company Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a short explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a business makes health information available and accessible to staff members.  This type of program often includes pamphlets on a variety of topics, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors providing information and providing health screenings to staff members.  

Awareness programs are inexpensive and do not require extensive employee or organization time commitments.  However, these programs do not usually yield behavior change.  Growing awareness isn’t usually sufficient to generate lifestyle changes for most people, unless used to innervate staff members to register for a program being available at the organization or community on the topic.  An example of this would be providing information on the deleterious effects of smoking and inviting staff members who use tobacco to register for a tobacco cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs frequently offer more information on a topic and usually also provide time for Q & A, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the organization a little more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require a whole lot of time for planning or attending a session.  Again, building awareness and offering information may not lead to the desired behavior change unless ongoing backing or incentives/rewards are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or courses to offer health and wellbeing education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require more business resources, cost more, and also require more employee responsibility, time and effort.  The results are often the desired beneficial lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples include smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing exercise program.

Environmental and Employer Support:  Environmental backing is often considered the highest and most valuable level to include when beginning your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy behaviors.  These types of design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a tobacco-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Securing workplace fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy snack machines selections,
• Offering healthy meal choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Creating flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy vending machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing gym or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or offering insurance incentives and rewards for healthy behaviors.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all of these options.  The more integrated the approach, the more efficacious the results will be.  By way of example, a business can have tobacco cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can enable an workplace tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support staff members to go to a community program; and/or on an environmental backing level can establish a tobacco-free workplace and grounds, offer reduced health insurance for non-smokers, or offer pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Employee Wellness Program: Components for Success

There are many main parts that have to be considered to see to the success of your Workplace Wellness Program or Workplace Wellness Program.  These include:  

• Senior Leadership Reinforcement & Employee Participation
• Active Worksite Wellness Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Established
• Detailed Action Plan Based upon Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Evaluation of Outcomes and Program