Company Wellness : Wellness Program Keys to Success.

Wellness programs come in all shapes and sizes. But regardless of plan design there are five common components that set the successful wellness programs apart from the rest.

At their core, wellness programs require constant monitoring and periodic adjustments.  The wellness programs that get mediocre results are the ones that are left to run on autopilot. That’s why it’s vital to –

1. Know thine enemy You have to know what’s driving your largest claim costs on your health care plan – both among staff members and their dependents.

2. Create realistic expectations. With wellness, what an employer gets will nearly always depend on how much it spends, how well it plans and how well it sustains communications with participants and the provider.

3. Maintain strong communications.  The health promotion programs that achieve the greatest success are those which are communicated aggressively from the get go and are sustained. Repetition is your friend when doing worker education.

4. Integrate wellness with other benefits. Real-life experience has shown that you ought to consider your staff member assistance programs (EAPs) an extension of the health promotion program. You should also consider issues like absenteeism, disability and worker’s compensation to be pieces of the wellness puzzle.

5. Practice what you preach.  The key to ensuring employee buy-in is for senior level management to lead the wellness program by establishing a positive example. If senior managers are unwilling to participate and address their own health issues, don’t expect many staff members to take the wellness program seriously.