Starting a Company Health Promotion Initiative

The workplace setting is a effective, but frequently overlooked, element in managing employee health.  Here we will establish some of the best-practices in creating a Company Health Promotion Initiative that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows employees to take charge of their own health.  For example, a Company Health Promotion Initiative that includes a smoke-free workplace policy increases the likelihood that employees will try to quit tobacco use and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Company Health Promotion Initiative that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps increase employees’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for employees with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in creating a Company Health Promotion Initiative and workplace setting that encourages employee health.

In an era of increasing health care costs and fierce competition, employers have a vested interest in the health of their employees.  Research studies have found that, on average, employees with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower health care expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than employees with unhealthy behaviors.

Employee Wellness Program: Obtaining Leadership Support

Company Health Promotion Initiative support from the uppermost level of leadership is essential to your success in creating a culture of wellness within your workplace. Look for Company Health Promotion Initiative support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not necessary that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Employee Wellness Program.) You will be relying on this culture-of-health champion to advocate for changes that you recommend and to ensure the organization allocates adequate Company Health Promotion Initiative resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and enhance the workplace policies, physical setting, and social norms.

Obtain Company Health Promotion Initiative Staff and Budget

The creation and maintenance of a Company Health Promotion Initiative within your organization needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your organization is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Employee Wellness Program.  There are a number of ways to find an individual with the necessary skills to guide and support your organization’s Employee Wellness Program.

Starting facilities and Company Health Promotion Initiative policies, such as those allowing employees to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be costly, but it does require adequate and sustained funding.  If possible, include the creation of a workplace setting that supports the Company Health Promotion Initiative as a permanent component of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your organization.

Employee Involvement in the Company Health Promotion Initiative

Developing a representative group of workers to advise your organization’s Company Health Promotion Initiative ensures that improvements in workplace facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and obstacles of all groups of workers.   In addition, these employees can support as the front-line Company Health Promotion Initiative supporters of policies and practices with their peers.

Develop a Company Health Promotion Initiative “Brand” and Vision

A Company Health Promotion Initiative vision and a brand are effective first steps in moving a Company Health Promotion Initiative from an idea to a reality. What would you like your workplace environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Company Health Promotion Initiative vision statement summarizes for all (employees and leaders alike) the reasons for creating a Employee Wellness Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between employee health and your organization’s ability to achieve its overall mission.

Branding your organization’s Company Health Promotion Initiative conveys to employees that the organization’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Company Health Promotion Initiative name and logo that resonate with employees. Then use that brand on all Company Health Promotion Initiative communications with employees about the policies, facilities and programs your organization offers to promote healthy behaviors.

Assess Your Current Company Health Promotion Initiative Situation

Exactly how your organization establishes a Company Health Promotion Initiative that encourages healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your organization and employee population.

Assess how the current workplace facilities, policies, and unwritten norms support — or discourage — healthy behaviors.

Gather information on the health and health-related behaviors of your employee population.  The most common method is by using a validated health risk assessment. If you don’t have data specific to your employees, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data.  Note: Information on workers’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.

Set Company Health Promotion Initiative Goals and Priorities

Use what you’ve discovered about employee health and about your current workplace setting to determine your organization’s Company Health Promotion Initiative priorities. From those Company Health Promotion Initiative priorities, define clear and measurable Company Health Promotion Initiative objectives for improving employee health and your organization’s culture. Well written objectives will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.

Choose Company Health Promotion Initiative Strategies

Focus your organization’s Company Health Promotion Initiative resources (time, energy and money) on procedures that are most likely to produce results:  an increase in healthy eating, an increase in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of research studies and has identified the Company Health Promotion Initiative approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Company Health Promotion Initiative procedures are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.

The formula for Company Health Promotion Initiative success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.

Implement Company Health Promotion Initiative Strategies

Once you’ve chosen your Company Health Promotion Initiative Strategies, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline.  The “right” amount of time for implementing each Company Health Promotion Initiative strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your organization.  Work plans maintain your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Company Health Promotion Initiative stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.

Educate and Communicate About the Company Health Promotion Initiative

Ensure employees are aware of the Company Health Promotion Initiative opportunities you’ve provided.   Planning your Company Health Promotion Initiative communications allows you to communicate regularly with employees without overwhelming them at any one time.

Monitor and Report Your Company Health Promotion Initiative Results

At the same time that you plan your Company Health Promotion Initiative Strategies, think about how you’ll measure success.  It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you start a Company Health Promotion Initiative strategy rather than as an afterthought.   Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in employee morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in rates of absenteeism or health care claims.

Report both your Company Health Promotion Initiative successes in building a healthy workplace environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides employees time for walking during the workday), and Company Health Promotion Initiative successes in getting workers to take charge of their health (an increase in the number of employees who contacted the stop-smoking program, or an increase in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).