How to Promote Health and Wellness in your Organization

Why is a Health and wellness program necessary in an organization?

In today’s world of cutthroat competition, everyone is so engrossed and occupied in their work-life, especially employees in big corporations and large firms, health often takes the back seat.

It is a fact that a healthy mind resides in a healthy body, a thus, a healthy employee outperforms others.

Here comes the need for a health and wellness program specially designed for employees on the mind.

A health and wellness program increases employee morale and the much needed on-the-job efficiency. Also, a sound health and wellness program significantly reduces the medical cost incurred by an organization.

According to statistics, employees who exercise regularly and lead healthy lifestyles incur 31% lower health care costs than those who don’t!  Amazing isn’t it?

So naturally, it should be a top priority for employers and management to promote an effective health and wellness program.

 

How to engage employees in health and wellness activities?

Now that we have established that an employee health and benefits platform is hugely important in a workplace, the next question is how to do it? How to motivate employees to take an active part in these programs?

Good news is it is easy.

Millennials and the new-age employees are already fitness conscious. For them, being healthy is no longer the state of being free from disease but also being physical and mentally sound. They are self-conscious, self-aware and to a certain extent selfish. They are reportedly choosing healthier substitutes for everything. But they are still human and all we humans need is a little push.

How to Promote Health and Wellness in your Organization

And if that push comes from the organization itself, what can possibly be better than that?

A comprehensive health and wellness program, that is also technologically advanced will easily meet the needs of today’s workforce.

 

 

Necessary components of a health and wellness program

  • A health and wellness program must be goal oriented and health-focused. It should have clear priorities and clear guidelines of the activities or area it will be measuring or tracking. Some primary features that a health and wellness program must have are Meal tracking, Calorie counter, footstep counter etc.
  • Secondly, there should be levels of competition in the program. Small achievable targets, in the beginning, will keep the users going, it will also keep motivating them to reach the next levels.
  • Employees should be able to customize activities according to individual preferences. They are basically looking for a menu with all the remedies to meet their vivid and broader definition of health and wellbeing. Moreover, the health needs of each individual are different, needs may also differ according to age, physical and mental abilities and health practices.
  • The program should continuously evaluate the results. It should show analytics giving insight into employee’s health activities and they’re their improvements. The management should be able to get a snapshot of the overall performance of the wellness initiatives.

 

 5 ways how you can reach out to your employees and give them the much-required-push:

  • Understand their needs: Before you rush to implementing a health and wellness program for your employees, try to understand the dynamics of their health and wellness behavior and their lifestyle pattern. Brainstorm and research on the areas of health and wellness where they need to improve. Choose an integrated health and wellness program that has all the required features and tools that suit your workforce.
  • Use best channels to reach out to them: One cannot just introduce a program and rest easy. You need to reach out to your employees and communicate with them through a channel that they are most comfortable in. The new age employees are digital natives, connecting to them through various social media platforms is the best thing that can be done. Promoting your health and wellness platform in platforms such as Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook etc will undoubtedly create intrigue and more willingness among employees to take part in it.
  • Make it mobile-first: If you want to implement a health and wellness program it has to be online. Having a program that is not online is like not having one! And next, it should be mobile-first. Your employees spend a huge chunk of their time on their phones. If your application isn’t accessible through mobile, it is impossible for you to engage them in the program.
  • User friendliness: The aim is to provide a health and wellness program that gives a seamless, convenient and hassle-free solution to the employees. Do not choose a program that will only complicate things to understand and measure. It should feel like a bonus to the employees and not an added headache. Make is as user-friendly as possible.
  • Gamification: Reward is a necessary element to motivate someone to do something. Without a goal or reward, a program will never be able to reach its full potential. Also, friendly competition and gamification work as added motivation. 

How to Promote Health and Wellness in your Organization

 

Benefits of a health and wellness program:

Having a health and wellness program in an organization comes with a lot of benefits for the business and the organization as well. Here are a few top benefits:

  • Wellness improves productivity: Poor employee productivity can be characterized as physically being at work but not working, which is very common in workplaces. A healthy and balanced lifestyle reduces poor productivity and laziness at work and enhances efficiency.
  • Decreased absenteeism and reduced health risks: Implementing a healthy lifestyle decreases the absenteeism of employees due to sickness or other health-related issues. Also, healthy practices prevent health risks, which leads to lower risks of chronic diseases.

How to Promote Health and Wellness in your Organization

A health and wellness program, therefore, acts as a cost-saving solution by reducing worker compensation claims and health care costs.

  • Decreased office stress: One of the most effective ways to relieve stress is to maintain healthy lifestyle habits. Healthy lifestyle brings benefits such as reverse stress response, endorphin rush, a release of frustration. All of these factors lead to decreased stress and anxiety.
  • Presents a caring image: Offering a wellness program leads to happier employees. They’ll appreciate the benefit they are offered and be naturally be motivated to lead a healthy life. They’ll feel valued and cared for by the organization they are working for.

 

Final Words

Creating or introducing a health and wellness program for employees is an important step forward for an organization. Many organizations might already have a program running in their workplace, but it is equally necessary to evaluate if the program is meeting the unique health needs of your diverse workforce.

Implement a program that is technology driven and provides an overall seamless experience. Also, make sure that the program suits the millennials who are going to be a huge part of the workforce in the coming time.

Having a good health and wellness program results in enhanced work motivation and employee engagement. It also adds to the charm of the job profile during recruitments.

To sum it up a health and wellness program is a smart investment for any organization. The perks and potential are huge and it is slowly emerging as a must-have in all workplaces.

Vantage circle’s health and wellness program Vantage Fit offers an one-stop solution for employee health and wellness. Vantage Fit is a customizable mobile-first health and wellness application aiming to rejuvenate overall wellness of employees.

 To read more on employee engagement and related topics visit: VantageCirle