Health and Wellness Leads : Worksite Wellness Program Design Options

The program design options depend on the goals and objectives and desired outcomes of your program.  If your goal is to help employees make a change behavior, reduce risk factors, or save healthcare money then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be essential to support that design.  

Wellness program design options vary, depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining similar results, and therefore should not be confused.  For example, planning activities such as an employee wellness and health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having brochures available do not usually result in behavior change, but may increase awareness on a topic.  If the goal is behavior change then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Company Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a short explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a organization makes health information available and accessible to staff members.  This type of program often includes brochures on a variety of subject matters, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors offering information and offering health screenings to staff members.  

Awareness programs are cheap and do not require extensive employee or employer time commitments.  Nevertheless, these programs do not usually yield behavior modification.  Increasing awareness isn’t usually sufficient to generate lifestyle changes for most people, unless used to arouse staff members to register for a program being available at the employer or area on the topic.  An example of this would be providing information on the deleterious effects of smoking and inviting staff members who use tobacco to register for a tobacco cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs frequently provide more information on a topic and usually also provide time for Q & A, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the company a little more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require a whole lot of time for planning or attending a session.  Again, increasing awareness and providing information may not lead to the desired behavior change unless ongoing reinforcement or rewards and incentives are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or sessions to offer health and wellness education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require more organization resources, cost more, and also require more employee responsibility, time and effort.  The results are frequently the desired beneficial lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples are tobacco cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing fitness program.

Environmental and Corporation Support:  Environmental backing is often considered the highest and most valuable level to include when beginning your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy behaviors.  These types of design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a tobacco-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Securing worksite fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy snack machines selections,
• Offering healthy diet choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Creating flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy vending machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing health club or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or providing insurance incentives for healthy lifestyles.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all of these options.  The more integrated the approach, the more efficacious the outcome will be.  For example, a business can have tobacco cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can enable an worksite tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support staff members to attend a area program; and/or on an environmental reinforcement level can establish a tobacco-free workplace and grounds, offer reduced healthcare insurance for non-smokers, or provide pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Worksite Wellness Program: Components for Success

There are several key parts that must be considered to ensure the success of your Corporate Health Promotion Program or Corporate Health Promotion Program.  These include:  

• Upper Management Reinforcement & Employee Involvement
• Active Corporate Wellness Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Established
• Detailed Action Plan Based upon Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Assessment of Outcomes and Program