Category — Employee Health and Wellness

Why Complete a Employee Health Promotion Program Environment Assessment?

The purpose of completing the assessment is to identify your jobsite’s strengths and areas in need of improvement. The assessment will lead your workgroup to recommend actions for changes to make the worksite more supportive of healthy behaviors (i.e. healthy food choices in vending machines, policies to enforce no smoking on worksite grounds or encouraging walking during break times). You may find some of the actions for supporting healthy behaviors are easy to do and others may not be feasible or efficient in your worksite.  The assessment results can also be used as a baseline measure for evaluation.  The initial assessment can later be compared with a follow-up assessment several months later to note progress.

Who should do the Employee Health Promotion Program Environment Assessment?

Identify a workgroup (at least 4-5 people) who will be responsible for completing the assessment.  This may be a subset of your wellness workgroup.  Forming a diverse group from all areas and levels of your employer is important for meaningful assessment and successful planning and implementation. Suggested participants include: human resources, employees from various departments, administrators, supervisors, worker or wellness staff.

When should the Employee Health Promotion Program Environment Assessment be Done?

Use the assessment as a starting point for your wellness initiative. Once you have completed the assessment, determine which areas the workgroup will focus on (i.e. healthy eating, physical activity, general health, etc.). Establish a time for the workgroup to meet and monitor the progress. Also determine a schedule for annual assessments, so that the assessment can serve as a tool for continuous improvement and accountability over time.

Part 1 – Wellness Assessment Checklist

Complete a Worksite Wellness Assessment Checklist to determine what wellness components you currently have at your worksite.   This can be done with the full workgroup or you may want a few key personnel (such as the Human Resources lead, Wellness Coordinator or Workgroup Coordinator) to do a preliminary scan based on information they gather and then let the full workgroup react to their findings. Ask your broker for a sample wellness assessment checklist or create your own.

Completion of the checklist provides a reference point of the wellness functions that are currently in place or in process and it provides an overview of some of the items that should be considered for a broad-based Employee Health Promotion Program.

Checklist Components:

Categories.  There are six major categories (General, Physical Activity, Nutrition, Health Screening, Tobacco Use and Emergency Response Plan).  Each category has several questions that address what you currently have in place at your worksite.

Current Status.  Initially, list whether you have the component (Yes), are in the process of instituting the component or you are planning for the component (In Process) or don’t have the component at all (No).  At the end of each category, sub-total the number in each column and then total all of the categories at the end of the checklist to get an overview of where your worksite Employee Health Promotion Program currently rates. You should also use this baseline measure as a benchmark for later evaluation.  By evaluating where your worksite is on each wellness component, you will be able to get a general idea of your status across each category and all 57 items.

Potential Priorities.  After you have completed the assessment and the employee interest survey, you can use the potential priority column to indicate what components you might want to focus on that are either currently in process or don’t exist.  This can serve as a first screening of possible areas to focus on as you develop your action plan.

Part 2: worker Input

Why would we want to do an employee survey?

You should conduct an employee survey to get a better understanding of your target audience (your employer’s employees) and get an initial idea of their current health habits and interest areas.  The survey can be tailored to your worksite and can be done in paper form or through the use of survey instruments on the internet or that can be purchased.   You can create your own employee survey or ask your broker for a Workplace Wellness Needs and Interest Survey.

As was the case with the worksite environmental assessment, the employee survey results can also be used as a baseline measure for later evaluation.  The initial survey results can later be compared with a follow-up survey several months later to note progress.

You should also consider engaging employees in focus groups or informal interviews to gather information on their wants and needs.  This can be done either before or after the survey, or if you don’t have the resources to survey employees, you could use this method to gather information in place of the survey.

Whatever method you use to gather information, make it as easy as possible for employees to complete and submit the information so you get a high return rate.  Consider offering an incentive or prize for people who complete the survey.

Once you start a program you will have a range of worker participants.  Some will already be very engaged in being active and eating well and your program will only reinforce and enhance their health.  On the other end of the spectrum will be people who may not engage no matter what you do.  The remaining group is probably the largest group in most businesses: people who are at various stages of readiness to improve their health given the right type of programming and motivation.   Summarized below are some tips you may want to employ once your program is up and running.

Key Factors in Employee Health Promotion Program

In today’s society there are many primary factors that influence people’s health behaviors.  Consider the following list in maintaining participation in your program:

1.    TIME.  Employees are busy, so the more you can work activity and healthy eating into their existing schedules, the better your chances for success.  Example: A walk at lunch doesn’t take away from existing time, it just uses it differently.  Also review the time of the day and length of any activity you might be promoting, since both time components may be factors.
2.    ACCESS.   How accessible is your Employee Health Promotion Program.  Is it onsite or at a nearby site?  Do you offer access at breaks or outside of normal work hours?
3.    KNOWLEDGE.  Employees need to know “Why” they are participating (the benefits) and also will need information about the “How to” in areas that are not commonly known.
4.    COST.  Make certain that you can provide no cost or reduced cost Employee Health Promotion Programs will help participation rates.  Coupled with incentives for participation, rates of participation will likely increase dramatically.
5.    INCENTIVES.  Some people need incentives to get started in a Employee Health Promotion Program.  A full list of Employee Health Promotion Program incentive options can be on the website.

Key Time Periods in Employee Health Promotion Program

Good habits are often difficult to develop.  There tends to be some critical times when people drop out or fall off of a physical activity or diet program.   The first key time zone seems to be around 6 weeks.   If people can start and stay consistent with a program through the first 6 weeks, they have made a fairly serious commitment to incorporate the habits into their lifestyle.  The second key time is at about 6 months.  Those who made it past 6 weeks may get bored and/or distracted from their program after several months.  If people can get past 6 months and sustain behavior through a full set of weather seasons, they have a very good chance of making the changes permanent.

Consider these time periods and think about how you can “boost” your employees to get them past these critical time markers.  Promoting individual or group “challenges”, using incentives, or increased publicity/marketing are a few of the things you can do to help get your employees through these key time periods

Goal Setting for Employee Health Promotion Program

Setting goals has been shown to lead to better participation and more people making a strong commitment.  Whether it be a team goal of walking the equivalent of once around your state or an individual goal of so many miles or minutes of activity, the fact that there is something concrete to shoot for increases the likelihood people will stick with the program.

Buddy Systems or Team Goals for Employee Health Promotion Program

The social aspects of improving one’s health cannot be underestimated.  Many studies point to tight social groups being the backbone for a successful campaign because each individual has a commitment to something bigger than themselves and besides, it’s just more fun for most people. Build your program around some type of teams or partners and see what happens.

Team “Campaigns” for Employee Health Promotion Program

Some people like competition and others don’t.  Nevertheless, a worksite wide campaign has the advantage of keeping the message more visible and alive.  Encourage campaign participation, but make it voluntary so that those who prefer that type of motivation can join while others can participate in their own way and at their own pace.  If the idea of a campaign seems like too much work, consider tapping into existing campaigns where someone else provides resources for you.

Incentives for Employee Health Promotion Program

Incentives are often helpful in maintaining or raising interest.  Significant incentives such as cash or health insurance rebates have proven to be very strong motivators for worker participation.  However, even smaller incentives can be beneficial.  Listed below are some sample incentives:
• Achievement awards. Verbal praise and a pat on the back are motivational to some, but a token of recognition of achievement may offer more. A colorful certificate to congratulate an worker for achieving a health-related goal is one example.
• Public recognition.  Announced recognition at campaign mid-point or wrap-up festivities.
• Food.  Include some healthy foods to kick-off, revitalize or wrap up a wellness campaign.
• Entertainment.  Events serve a purpose in jump-starting, reenergizing or wrapping up a campaign.  Having entertainment of any kind can boost morale.
• Merchandise.  There is a long list of merchandise incentives, including sports equipment and small gift certificates to use at local merchants.
• Monetary rewards.  Nothing says incentive better than cash.  Worksites that have used cash or rebates as an incentive have shown much higher participation rates.
• Time off.  Maybe the next best incentive to cash, or for some people even better.  This type of incentive makes good business sense if the number of absences drops significantly and attendance is used as one of the criteria.