Poor health amongst employees will cost your company. It raises your health insurance costs as an employer. And for the employee, it means fewer productive days. Thus, implementing a wellness program that helps to reduce costs and, which increases productivity is important. But with a pandemic raging on, this may seem almost impossible. Or is it?
Even though we are in the middle of a pandemic, if there was a time to implement a wellness program for your company, this is it. Doing so will require some creativity and require that you factor in the needs of your employees.
So how exactly does a company implement a wellness program in such a difficult time? In this post, we will talk about practical ways to implement a company wellness program during the pandemic.
Implementing a wellness program during the pandemic
It’s important to consider the following four steps before you implement your wellness program.
Assess
Where does your company stand on workforce health? The CEO, human resources department, and employee representatives need to come together and discuss this. Having frank conversations with employees on the type of wellness that is practical, and which will benefit everyone.
Based on this assessment phase, your team can then begin to think of the tools – such as the wellness management software or platform – that is best suited for the purpose.
Plan
This is the phase where you put the findings from the assessment phase into a workable plan that can be implemented.
And so for instance, you have found out that there are parents who may not be able to get on for group Zoom workouts at 8 am in the morning. How can you fit those needs into a plan to help and benefit everyone?
During planning is when you will also come up with a strategy to provide education and communicate with employees. This is also when you will choose the right software and tools to help you launch the wellness program.
Health risk assessments are pivotal to a successful wellness program launch. Since the pandemic began, a lot has changed with people’s health – both physically and mentally. Since you are launching a new wellness program during the pandemic, it will be necessary to design health risk assessments that address these additional layers of health.
This information will also help shape the wellness program so your employees are getting what they need.
Engage
It is time to launch the wellness program to your company. By this point, you would have:
- considered employee-centric needs and have included them in the wellness program
- and chosen the right software and tools to help you implement the program successfully
This is also the stage where you will implement the plan for communicating and educating your workforce to encourage maximum participation.
Measure
Anything that is not measured is not improved. Don’t launch the wellness program and bail. It is going to take a careful assessment of the data for a period of 6-12 months usually to come up with statistically significant data, but by all means, measure the effectiveness of the wellness program.
Here are some broad areas to consider as you assess the effectiveness of your company’s wellness program.
- Are your employees participating in the wellness program?
- What is the employee feedback on the program? Is it generally positive or negative?
- Has the implementation of your wellness program reduced your health insurance costs?
- Has the wellness program reduced the number of days employees are sick?
- Are employees requesting more programs?
As a person in leadership at your company, you can access this data through your wellness portal, by looking at the premium costs you’ve had to pay, and by surveying employees.
Working on implementing a new employee-centric wellness program or revamping the one you have based on feedback is vital to your company’s survival. Thus, it’s smart to pay attention to it.
