Health and Wellness Leads : Worksite Wellness Program: create a Detailed Action Plan  

The Workplace Health Promotion Program Committee ought to set out a plan for the entire year that outlines accomplishing goals/objectives, as well as supports details for marketing and evaluating the program. The plan is the detailed map of what types of programs will be offered, when and where they will be scheduled, how they will be marketed and evaluated, and what the budget is.  It is significant to plan your wellness activities based on your goals/objectives, as well as the budget since different strategies will yield different outcomes.  By way of example, if your mission is to increase awareness on a topic, then distributing pamphlets or scheduling a one-time class may be appropriate.  Nonetheless, if your intention is to change behavior, then different strategies may be necessary, such as ongoing weekly meetings and support groups.  Click here to link to Program Design Options for additional ideas.

Company Wellness Program Marketing

This is the time to plan your marketing strategies!  How can you market the wellness program and ongoing activities?  No matter how you decide to, market often, keep it fresh, and remind employees repeatedly!  Consider having an overall kickoff activity to let everyone know about the wellness program.  Senior Leadership ought to support the introduction or invitation so that all employees are knowledgeable about their support and leadership in the program.

Possible marketing methods:

• Distributing email messages, including reminders
• Organize flyers,
• Hanging bulletin board postings,
• Writing articles,
• Mailing letters or
• Sending special invitations.  

Other Worksite Health Promotion Program Considerations:

• Is the Workplace Health Promotion Program promoted to all employees or to a specific group?
• Do you have a Worksite Wellness Program champion (someone who is joined with different groups in the organization, and well respected) who can help in your promotion efforts?
• If your marketing efforts do not seem to be working, do you have a way to revisit and adjust your strategy?
• How will you determine performance and evaluate your program?  And how will you collect the information required to evaluate your program?  

Topics most frequently included in Company Health Promotion Programs:

• Nutrition
• Physical Activity/Exercise
• Tobacco Use Cessation
• Bone Health
• Heart Health
• Healthy Back
• Stress Reduction
• Chronic Disease Awareness & Prevention
• Self-care; Wise Medical Care Consumer
• Screening Services (BMI, Blood Pressure (BP), bone density, cholesterol, glucose, posture, vision, and other…)
• Ergonomic Assessments
• Health Fairs
• Kids/family Events
• Others issues that staff members have interest in  

The issues and type of Worksite Health Promotion Program planned hinge upon the needs and interest, central intention and resources available.  Program Design Options   include awareness programs such as brochures and/or education sessions, behavior modification programs such as smoking cessation and weight loss classes, and environmental or employer support such as no smoking policies or healthy selections in snack machines.  

The programs planned also hinge upon the demographics of your workforce.  If you have a young, healthy workforce, you may want to focus the wellness attention on keeping workers healthy and not need to screen for disease.  Instead you might want to focus on healthy lifestyle behavior such as exercise and great nourishment to prevent the start of disease.  Click here for more information on strategies for keeping workers well, identifying disease early, or returning workers to work who already have a chronic conditions.

It is also important to consider, and plan how you will evaluate the performance of your wellness program.  The system needs to be demonstrated for tracking certain data and recording activities depending on the program goals/objectives.  Step 7 discusses program assessment in more detail.   And Step 6 will launch your program!