Build flexibility into your Employee Wellness Program.

Think ahead: what unexpected challenges might come up as you start your Employee Wellness Program? How could you adapt and change the Company Health Promotion Initiative to meet those challenges?

• Consider the “what if’s?”
• What if your classroom space is suddenly no longer available?
• What if you can’t hold the Health Fair in the usual place?
• Have a ‘Plan B’ (or even Plan C or Plan D) in mind for when the “what if’s” happen.

• Build a team that can help with the Company Health Promotion Initiative
• Who else could teach the health education class if the regular instructor cancels at the last minute?
• Know what areas of expertise your staff has besides their ‘main’ job. For example, find out who has excercise instructor credentials besides just the physical therapist.
• Don’t wait for a crisis before you build a network of employees that you can call on.

• Be ready to roll your sleeves up
• Jump in to fill a gap if you need to.
• YOU may have to help restock the milk case in the dining center when the Dairy Month ‘Milk Mustache’ contest results in raised sales during lunch.

• Be willing (and ready) to respond to feedback about the Company Health Promotion Initiative
• Get participant feedback while the Company Health Promotion Initiative is ongoing. Then be ready to adapt to those suggestions.
• For example, if kids in a pediatric obesity Company Health Promotion Initiative fight the idea of completing exercise logs, then get a verbal summary of their activity for the week instead.

• Simplify Company Health Promotion Initiative
• If part of your Company Health Promotion Initiative is not working, try making that part less complicated.
• For example, if getting follow-up information is not going the way you planned, then make the process to get information easier OR decrease the number of pieces of information that you collect.

• Use lemons to make lemonade
• What do you do when the Company Health Promotion Initiative doesn’t turn out exactly as you planned? Look for what did turn out. Often, the ‘unexpected outcomes’ produce positive results.
• For example, one company’s database to collect sick call data was made obsolete by a regional system. However, the company database was able to be used in a different way to track vaccination information that improved delivery of care to Employees.