Health and Wellness Leads : What are Company Health Promotion Programs?

The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports interprets wellness as “a multidimensional state of being describing the existence of positive health in an individual as exemplified by quality of life and a sense of wellness.” Wellness looks beyond the current model of treating disease and focuses on preventive conduct and healthier lifestyles. Corporate Health Promotion Programs, also frequently referred to as Corporate Health Promotion Programs, serve as a complement to existing insurance-based health benefit programs and can take many forms and address a myriad different potential health conditions. They are a powerful strategy to promote positive lifestyle changes that can result in significant cost savings for businesses.

Examples of potential components of a Company Wellness Program comprise of:

Health Risk Assessments / Employee Health Screenings – Health Risk Assessments (aka Health Risk Appraisals), evaluate the most prevalent lifestyle-related risks of an individual. HRAs often include screenings for Blood Pressure (BP), cholesterol, glucose levels and other health indicators. These analyses provide significant benchmarking measures that ideally will allow staff members to prevent or cut their risk of illnesses. Finding Wealth Through Wellness, As noted by Kathryn Krivy, director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Institute in Chicago, “Medically based Health Risk Assessments are a necessity because in order to affect change in your company, you need to know what the problems are, and you just don’t know until you get the data.”

Physical Activity and Weight Management – One of the most popular Workplace Wellness Programs is for corporations to support access to a exercise facility, often onsite. Other potential measures include offering healthier snack machines and cafeteria options, weight management support groups and fitness challenge programs. Some corporations, like hospital group Baptist Health South Florida, will even pay for staff members to go to weight-loss classes such as Weight Watchers.

Awareness and Education Programs – Many  businesses hold events addressing the benefits of nutrition, safety or physical fitness, among other issues. Other options are to host a health and wellbeing fair or lead a disease-awareness campaign.

Behavior Modification – This covers issues like smoking, wearing seat belts, and alcohol use. While many organizations will supply assistance for staff members looking to change behavior, some organizations, like healthcare benefits administrator Weyco, Inc., mandate changes, such as stopping smoking, as a condition of employment.

Alternative Treatments – Other Corporate Wellness Programs can comprise of absorbing some or all of the costs for massages, stress-reduction activities like yoga or even herbal medicines.