Health and Wellness Leads : What is a Worksite Wellness Program?

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people modify their lifestyle to move toward a state of ideal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, modify behavior, and create environments that support good health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Company Health Promotion Program: Action Steps

The process of building a Employee Wellness Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your staff members
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and implementing the programs
• Building in motivational rewards and incentives
• Measuring the effect
• Revising programs based on assessment outcomes

It may even include beginning policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your workplace (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Company Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an organization assessment
• Obtain senior staff reinforcement
• Establish a Employee Health Promotion Program Committee
• Obtain employee input
• Develop goals and objectives
• Design and enable program activities
• Select incentives
• Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through accross the board Corporate Wellness Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help workers live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs. In fact, one of the goals/objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to improve the proportion of workers that participate in a accross the board Corporate Wellness Program at their worksite to 75 percent.