Creating an Employee Wellness Program

You may not have the budget of Apple and Google but you can still implement an employee wellness program that will benefit your employees and the bottom line. Organising, or even paying for, staff yoga classes may seem very ‘fluffy’ but they do have real benefit. Therefore, it’s good to measure and evaluate once implemented.

There are several different metrics that you could use, from absenteeism rates through to productivity rates, from retention rates to company culture and staff morale. If you aren’t tracking all of these, a survey of staff before the program begins will give you a benchmark to measure against.

Think about what you expect to see from your wellness program. Do you want to cut staff turnover, reduce sick days, or perhaps attract higher calibre staff? For instance, the yearly cost of sickness absence for UK organisations is now in the region of £29 billion (Source: HR Magazine) so reducing your company’s sickness level through mindfulness workshops could have a major impact your company’s bottom line.

Creating The Program

Wellness programs can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make them. We suggest starting simple and building up. We work with our clients to help them create wellness programs that their employees see as a benefit but also benefits the company.

Think about whether you’ll be paying for some, or all the items you implement. Who pays varies from company to company. Perhaps you’ll pay for one-off workshops, such as posture awareness or stress management, and just organise the chair-massage treatments for employees to pay for themselves. Think about the components. Will you focus on stress reduction, desk-based injuries, or address a broad spectrum of wellness issues?

Consider who’ll run the program. It may be the HR department, or a wellness committee picked from different teams. If you put together a committee you may not want them to have confidential information so think about who’ll measure the program.

Communication Is Key

A new wellness strategy does not get off the ground without the buy-in of employees so communicating with them is crucial. It will build the momentum needed for the chosen items to stick and not fizzle out within a month. There is no point going to the effort of putting in something in place if it is not given the chance to be embedded into the company.

Working With A Wellness Provider

A wellness provider can provide ideas and options that you may not have considered, such as running a nutrition workshop. Did you know that employees who eat healthy are 25% more likely to have higher job performance? (Source: Business News Daily)? They are also able to tweak and create a program to your budget and needs and work with you to evaluate it.

If you want to make wellness a priority in 2017 then please do get in touch.