Workplace Wellness Programs: Do They Work? What Are Some Best Practices?

Understand the Definition Well-Being

Before embarking on a new workplace wellness program, it’s important for management to understand what goes into overall wellness.

Gallup and Healthways have identified five components of well-being. According to these organizations, people need to have a sense of purpose and enjoy what they are spending their time on. The idea of purpose helps people stay motivated to achieve greater goals outside of themselves, both inside and outside a workplace.

Second, your team members need a social component to their lives. Within the workplace, that usually means supportive relationships with coworkers and supervisors. Outside of the workplace, this means having time to develop and nurture affectionate, close relationships with friends and family.

The third area of well-being is a financial one. If your employees can manage a personal budget and feel confident in their financial security on a personal level, then they are likely to experience a reduction in overall stress.

Having a sense of community or belonging is the fourth area of wellness. That means employees enjoy where they live and work, feel safe and secure, and are proud of their workplace, city, or town.

And finally, people want a physical sense of well-being, which usually includes good health. Supporting employees in healthy lifestyles and providing physical health resources falls in this category of wellness.

Employee wellness programs that address these five areas well-being, focusing on the areas that are most important your company, will be far more successful than those that ignore these elements. Holistic wellness programs can indeed improve both the personal lives of individual employees, as well as boost the bottom-line results for a business.

It's important to realize that these five components of wellness tend to reinforce and play off of one another. For example, if team members feel secure and experience a sense of belonging while at work, they are probably more likely to sign up for an evening exercise class. Or, if an employee cannot manage a budget effectively, that might mean they are less likely to plan out healthy meals. By designing your workplace wellness program to focus on these five areas, you will create a program that is truly holistic and serves the needs of your employees.

5 Ways to Improve your Company Wellness Program

By focusing on customization, the ideas for your employee wellness program are nearly endless. Be sure to get creative with what you offer, and ask your employees for their input and suggestions. Here are a few popular workplace wellness benefits that many companies have found to be successful. Remember to mix-and-match to meet your business’ individual needs.

1. Incorporate Flexibility in the Workplace

Flexibility in the workplace can include many components. Traditionally, flexibility has often meant adjusting what time an employee starts and finishes a workday. However, flexibility might also include the ability to occasionally work from home, take time off during the day for personal appointments or goals, or tackle big projects at a time that's personally most efficient.

Having a flexible relationship between employer and employee can be very beneficial, as long as neither takes advantage of the situation. In some cases, more work can be accomplished, worker productivity increases, and company engagement is higher.

2. Encourage Healthier Physical Postures

In a typical office setting, people spend hours sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen. A workplace wellness program that helps employees escape this unhealthy posture throughout the workday can be very beneficial, both physically and mentally. For example, employees may appreciate the ability to work at standing desks, or participate in walking meetings. Both of these options do not necessarily disrupt the workday, but could improve the physical, mental, and even emotional health of white-collar employees.

3. Provide Onsite Care

Companies might also want to look into providing on-site services and programs to improve employee wellness. Perhaps one of the most popular wellness benefits is having an on-site fitness center. It can be much easier for employees to exercise if equipment and facilities are just down the hall. In addition, some larger corporations may offer a full-time nurse, on-site preventive health screenings, healthy snacks and meals, and in-house massages.

These on-site benefits, however, can be expensive to implement and maintain, so it’s critical that your organization tracks its return on its investment in the long run.

4. Prioritize Wellness as a Community Goal

Educational resources that help employees keep their wellness top of mind can also be helpful. Such programs can be simple as publishing a regular wellness newsletter, providing a free lending library of health and wellness books, or offering no-charge personalized nutrition counseling.

Sponsoring mindfulness, yoga, or other meditation classes during lunch or after work as well as providing discounted or free fitness classes can also go a long way in improving employee health.

Many employees may appreciate a communal reward aspect to an employee wellness program. For example, some organizations have issued monthly challenges to motivate employees to focus on one aspect of wellness. Remember to customize the reward; it could be anything from a cash bonus, an additional vacation day, or a donation to the winner's favorite charity. Quarterly or annual wellness program awards can also be created.

5. Leadership Buy-in of Wellness Best Practices

As you can imagine by now, the most important indicator of a successful wellness program is whether or not it is based on a genuine belief that the management of a particular company truly cares about its employees.

Best practices, therefore, are not one-size-fits-all programs, but have more to do with how a particular wellness program is thoughtfully designed with a specific company culture in mind.

A resulting framework of a best practice workplace wellness program has five elements: leadership, policies, communication, programs, and evaluation.

The first best practice element is leadership, which means that management is visibly committed to the health and well-being of all employees. That means by both word and action, managers must encourage and discuss wellness issues with their individual teams regularly. Supervisors should also show by example and take advantage of the wellness benefits and programs themselves.

The particular policies and practices of a company should then flow naturally from the commitment of company leadership. It's important to realize that best practice wellness programs are an ongoing effort. As a result, the business needs to have a system in place to provide ongoing evaluation of goals and objectives as well as look at progress and results.

Companies should not skip to the actual program development until the fourth stage of best practice. Again, these programs need to be customized and designed for a particular set of employees in a specific workplace environment. Once those programs are selected, they should be designed and implemented, and later, measured for effectiveness.

Finally, communication is critical between both leadership, human resources, and employees themselves. There must be a transparent, ongoing conversation about workplace wellness. Ongoing improvements and changes should be made as the program continues.

Conclusion

Workplace wellness programs are probably not going away anytime soon. In fact, they are so common today that they are nearly an expected benefit. However, the way companies choose to establish, implement, maintain, and change their wellness programs can have a huge impact on whether or not they are successful in the long run.

The best workplace wellness programs do not have to be the most expensive or impressive, but instead, must be based on a genuine desire to care for and support your employees. These programs, designed to meet your particular workforce, will be much appreciated and truly result in healthier, happier employees who are willing to give their all to your company.