Health Wellness ProgramHealth and Wellness Programs and Wellness Program Consulting

Gaining senior level management support is crucial to the success of a exercise initiative.

Whether the changes you would like to make involve the work environment, overall policies or specific programs, successfully beginning your ideas depends on upper-level management support.

Support from upper-level management is crucial for three reasons –

• You will need their agreement to involve workers in a workplace program.

• When senior level management pays attention to and supports an initiative, employees also see the initiative as worthwhile.

• Management has the power to give work time and money to support the wellness program.

It is imperative that you keep senior level management involved throughout a physical activity initiative, but at three points you will need support for –

• An overall concept, including a go-ahead to assess what workers want to do within the limitations of your worksite environment.

• A detailed plan (based on the assessment above) coupled with resources to carry out the plan.

• Reviewing the initiative to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the initiative.

Approaching Management

Before approaching senior management to gain initial support for promoting physical activity during the workday, do your homework.

• Prepare a business case clearly outlining how the business will benefit by promoting physical activity during the workday.

• List the individual, social and corporate benefits of exercise and the benefits of being active during the workday.

• Present some general ideas about what the health promotion program might include.

Expect questions such as the following from upper-level management –

• Just how this help our corporation?

• Precisely how can we motivate employees to participate?

• Precisely how much will it cost to run this wellness program or make this change?

• Just how are we going to know a year from now if this was a good use of time and resources?

Ask managers about the range of activities they’d support. Very often managers have ideas of their own they’d like to see acted on to enhance the worksite.

Don’t forget to include middle managers when gaining support for your wellness program. They can be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical activity challenges.