Corporate Wellness Blog

Can a small business support workplace wellness? Most certainly! In fact, in some ways it is easier to create a healthy workplace in a small business than in a sizable business.

Limited resources, especially in small organizations, can prevent a business from setting up a Company Health Promotion Program. Reasons can include:

• lack of budget resources;
• lack of employee;
• lack of senior-level support;
• sparse knowledge of the wellness concept and;
• problem about making wellness available to all staff members.

According to the Wellness Councils of America, some small company owners may have a flawed idea of what is involved in running a Corporate Health Promotion Program. Some employers aren’t sure a program would truly work and others feel that trying to change personal lifestyle behaviours is intruding and “none of their business”.  Maybe they don’t know that it need not be costly and that they don’t need special employee. They may not be aware that some employee would like to see some healthy changes and would help make things happen in their workplace.

It Can Be Done

Many small companies have found ways to have a Corporate Wellness Program that works for them. They keep the expense and effort to a minimum and still have results that are beneficial for everyone. In 2006, Graham Lowe wrote a report on the best places to work in Calgary. He said that healthy workplaces frequently have a “positive workplace culture”.  In a workplace with a beneficial culture, individuals feel appreciated, valued, and trusted.

Dr. Lowe says it is easier for a small workplace to have a beneficial workplace culture than for a sizable workplace. Many employees prefer to work for a small employer, he says, because it supplies more opportunities to work closely with others and cultivate a sense of community.

In his report, Dr. Lowe says the most efficacious businesses with fewer than 100 workers have:

• excellent employee benefits;
• policies that reward a balance between work and personal life;
• flexible schedules;
• competitive salaries;
• excellent leadership with an emphasis on teamwork;
• environmentally responsible organization policies;
• procedures for seeking employee input; and
• a focus on placing employees’ personal wellness ahead of the personal gain of Senior Management.

All or most of these elements are also components of a strong Worksite Wellness Program.

Tips and Ideas

There are various ways to include health and wellness in a small organization. You don’t necessarily need a wellness professional or a fancy health club. What you do need is backing from management and a Company Wellness Program Committee of a few committed people. Here are some ideas that your workplace can consider.

Communications and Promotion

• Send out a regular “wellness” newsletter on paper or web-based. Or send out a brief message such as the weekly Healthy U Hot Tip.
• Use promotions that are already designed, such as Healthy Workplace Week.

Active Living and Healthy Eating

• Urge employee to sign up for the Stairway to Health stair climbing competition.
• Have pedometers for workers and track their steps.
• Rent a nearby school or community fitness center and offer physical activity classes.
• Hire a local fitness instructor to teach classes or lead stretch breaks. Expenses can be shared with employees.
• Install secure bicycle parking.
• Offer healthy alternatives at company meetings and lunches.

Policy and Corporation Programs

• Enlist an ergonomics professional to evaluate workstations.
• Foster policies to support work-life balance (for example, mandatory vacations, flextime, limits to work and e-mail on personal time).
• Offer a wellness subsidy for a variety of health and leadership activities and courses.
• Provide monetary incentives to be healthy.
• Offer wellness incentives/rewards as rewards and recognition for a job well done.
• Conduct an business health audit.
• Become a partner with the neighborhood (for example, daycare, gyms, festivals, parks, restaurants).
• Spread the workload. Set up a Workplace Wellness Program Committee.

Small companies may not have an abundance of time, money, or human resources available for a Employee Wellness Program. But they frequently have a huge advantage over sizable companies-a beneficial workplace culture. That is a great foundation for a Employee Wellness Program. When workers are satisfied, enjoy their work environment, they are more beneficial, and tend to be healthier.  With a bit of creativity and passion, small companies can advance thriving Employee Wellness Programs. Get support from senior staff, form a Employee Wellness Program Committee of two or more and discover the possibilities!

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to create healthy workplaces focused on safety at the workplace and injury prevention for employees.

More recently, programs are designed to support  staff members to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or stopping smoking. Campaigns to spread awareness, educational sessions to increase knowledge, opportunities to learn new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthy choices are frequently included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach people, since most adult Canadians invest a large part of their day at work.

While safety and lifestyle programs are two aspects that contribute to the health of employees, workplace wellness is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.

How the workplace impacts health.

Increasingly, it is agreed upon that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When individuals are satisfied with their job, they are more constructive and tend to be healthier. When workers feel that the environment at work is detrimental, they feel stressed. Stress has a large effect on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productiveness.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified 5 components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the corporation overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that businesses must genuinely are concerned about the well-being of their workers.

Businesses today who want to attract and keep great workers have leaders who understand the association between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a business plan.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving workers in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and offering support to balance life at work and home.

Employers know that workers are looking for jobs that compensate well, have great benefits, are interesting, and include great health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more valuable than ever for organizations to enhance job satisfaction and ensure that workers enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and workers.

How does workplace wellness benefit the corporation?

A workplace wellness program can help a corporation to:

• attract and keep staff members;
• lower the costs of disability, drugs, and absenteeism;
• reduce the effects of a stressful workplace;
• decrease health costs or keep them contained; and
• better morale by planning a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Worksite Health Promotion Programs Advance workers?

workers of corporations that have a Corporate Health Promotion Program are likely to have:

• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to better their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and wellness;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productiveness and effectiveness at work;
• reduced personal medical expenditures; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health problems.

Both employers and employees have a responsibility for organizing a healthy workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in great health, and the company is expected to provide an environment that allows employees to maintain great health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the company’s success.

Workplace wellness is much more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about planning a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of employees, instituting a positive work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep employees healthy and happy at work. A good Worksite Health Promotion Program has an influence on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing.

Ideally, you will cultivate an overriding plan for a Employee Wellness Program before beginning to plan specific wellness programs. By way of example, you have the potential to begin by getting the following elements in place:

• backing from management
• a Workplace Wellness Program Committee or team
• information about the wellness needs and interests of employees
• a budget
• program objectives
• an evaluation plan

Even if you have few monetary and/or human resources, you can still take a “micro” approach. By way of example, you could focus on only one specific issue. Creativity, enthusiasm and planning can help you overcome limitations.

This article will give you some with some ideas for setting up Workplace Health Promotion Programs. Even the smallest steps have the potential to have an influence.

Whether you choose to begin with a single program or cultivate something larger, planning is important. First consider the big picture and then look after the details.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Ascertain an action. What health-related program will fit the bill and best suit the workers and employer?
• Promote. How can you most effectively spread the word to staff members? What opportunities exist for promotion? Consider everything, because staff members have access to and pay attention to different types of messages. In a typical workplace, staff members receive information from e-mail, newsletters, bulletins, brochures, meeting announcements and fellow staff members.
• Deliver. Who is the best person or group to put the program into action? Ask other businesses about approaches they have utilized. Decide on your budget prior to making a decision.
• Review. What must you evaluate to determine success? Do you need hard data and/or testimonials from individual participants?

We recommend the following when organizing your initiative:

• organizing and communicating clear objectives
• targeting your audience
• deciding on the type of program or campaign

The Elements of a Corporate Health Promotion Program

Plans to encourage wellness in the workplace don’t need to be restricted to a single area. You might think workplace wellness only involves promoting positive personal health, e.g., Blood Pressure (BP) clinics, brochures on heart disease, “lunch and learn” courses on eating habits and short-term physical activity programs.

These activities are valuable, but workplace wellness must also be part of business’s business plan and go beyond traditional programming.

Taking a broader approach, the National Quality Institute recently identified 3 key components of a healthy workplace:

• physical environment
• social environment and personal resources
• health practices

Specific Program Ideas

Physical Environment

Look after workers’ health and safety and establish regulations to support their health and safety. Consider offering the following:

• Safe bike storage and shower and/or change facilities for cyclists and other commuters.
• Fridges for employees to keep snacks and meals fresh and/or healthy snacks in snack machines and cafeterias.
• Ergonomic assessments.
• Subsidies to assist workers join local recreation centres.
• Classrooms/conference rooms available for booking activities such as yoga, pilates, tai chi, meditation and aerobics.
• Safe and pleasant stairwells that invite employees to use them.
• Assessing the potential for violence at work with plans to deal with such risks.
• Good lighting and sound and air quality.

Social Environment

Human relationships and communication, as well as ways of doing business, are able to affect an employee’s mental and physical health. Employers must consider the following:

• respectful workplace policies that offer safe worksites
• policies on flex time
• policies on working from home
• employee satisfaction surveys
• leadership coaching
• resiliency training
• EAPs

To cultivate a beneficial social culture or climate, consider employees’ needs, which include:

• being respected
• a sense of belonging, purpose and mission
• freedom of expression
• protection from harassment and discrimination

What you’ve “always done” may not address current employee needs. Making sure that individuals enjoy being at work is not an simple task, but making the right changes has the potential to have a huge influence.

Health Practices

Offer programs and set policies that help staff members remain healthy or improve their health while at work. Consider offering the following:

• “Lunch and learn sessions” on healthy habits such as sleeping better, eating on the run, healthy snacks, using a pedometer, pole walking, work-life balance, time management, stress management, resiliency, parenting and reading nutrition labels.
• Tobacco cessation clinics or subsidies to help employees quit.
• Health risk appraisals, including fitness assessments.
• Programs to address the problems raised in the health risk appraisals.
• Healthier snacks served at meetings and conferences.

Personal Employee Health Promotion Program Tips

If there is no wellness program at your workplace, don’t let that stop you from keeping healthy. Perhaps your example will spark a movement toward a healthier workplace.

Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Be active at work. There are a myriad of ways to bring activity into your workday. Walk to work, even if it’s just one way. Have walking meetings. Bike to work. Use the stairs. Walk to a workmate’s office rather than sending an e-mail.
• Eat smart at work. Pack a healthy meal. Have a bottle of water at your desk or workstation. Eat breakfast and eat regularly during the day. Take turns bringing a basket of fruit for co-workers’ snacks. Order healthy snacks for meetings.
• Maintain work-life balance. Work efficiently so you are able to leave on time. Conduct short, effective meetings. Leave your work at work and be sure not to take it home. Minimize social chit-chat. Arrange your office to enhance your work. Avoid clutter. Plan and prioritize to make sure that the most significant things get done first.

There is no limit to the number or variety of Workplace Health Promotion Programs. A key to success is planning well and ensuring that you can evaluate the outcome so that you can sustain momentum.

Talk to other wellness practitioners to learn what works well for them. Listen to your co-staff members to determine their needs and interests. And do not forget to promote, promote, promote.

Many companies recognize the need for a accross the board strategy to help their employees be the best they are able to be. They also know that successful and sustainable wellness programs are much more than a few “lunch and learn” programs.

Your wellness program should include a wide range of key components, including:

• A clear agenda or statement of goals and objectives.
• A plan characterized by passion.
• An effective leader who is creative and organized.
• A focus on short-term outcomes combined with an overriding vision.
• A measurable strategy (what’s important gets measured!).
• A policy of celebrating and communicating success.

Developing Your Employee Wellness Program

Develop carefully to make sure that your wellness program is seen as part of a sweeping responsibility to maintaining the health and safety of all workers. Indeed, creating a good plan takes a lot of effort and time (and at times resources). But planning is critical and well worth the expenditure required. As the saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”

You might begin by delivering a survey of employee needs and interests. If you take this route, pay attention to the outcome and plan accordingly. If you don’t, the employees will not support the program.

Collecting information about what you’re already offering is also a good idea. For example, you may be surprised by your company or organization’s current wellness and health policies.

Another valuable step is to set an agenda and/or measurable objectives and goals to help you come up with priorities, timelines and the resources required to kick off the program. Be bold and creative in your planning, but also realistic.

Senior Leadership

The leader of your wellness program must be able to wear a myriad of hats. The leader’s duties include:

• Creating a vision of the wellness program after receiving input from all interested staff members.
• Communicating ideas and a rationale throughout the employer (to senior managers and fellow workers alike).
• Keeping others enthusiastic about and committed to a wellness program.
• Serving as a role model and wellness coach.
• Developing and maintaining leadership skills such as giving effective presentations and being well-organized.

Good leaders avert becoming overwhelmed by overly ambitious and complex plans. You may want to stick to short-term goals and objectives at the beginning so that you get immediate and visible results. These first steps are the basis for a efficacious wellness program.

Good leaders involve as many people as possible in the program. By way of example, you’ll want to form a Employee Health Promotion Program Committee made up of a diverse group of employees to support advice during the planning phase. This approach will:

• Assist you to get significant information from all parts of the business.
• Create ambassadors who will help you enable the wellness program.

Keeping Score and Celebrating

Always keep in mind how you will monitor progress and evaluate the success of your wellness program. Evaluation allows you to:

• Determine areas of excellence.
• Identify factors that affect participation in your programs.
• Grasp management’s reinforcement for your efforts (and maintain that reinforcement).
• Better know problems that need attention.
• Learn from mistakes and change the program to keep it on the right track.

When you evaluate your program, you are able to measure such things as:

• Employee absences.
• Employee turnover rates.
• The expense of your Employee Assistance Program(EAP).
• The expenditure of benefits, including short-term and long-term disability payments.
• The expenditure of your prescription drug plan.
• Accident rates and safety records.
• Employees’ participation in wellness programs (and whether they’re staying in the programs).
• Changes in employees’ health habits.
• Level of employees’ awareness of healthy lifestyle issues.
• Results of your environmental wellness audit.
• Other noticeable changes in areas such as morale and job satisfaction.

A great communications plan provides ongoing information to workers (including senior managers) and creates excitement about the wellness program. Positive reinforcement is part of an effective communications plan. For example, you might recognize people who have helped established the program or offer tangible rewards for achieving objectives.

Everyone needs to know whether staff members are getting involved, enjoying the activities and getting some advance from them. Showing that a wellness program has economic benefits is often an significant factor in maintaining strong support from the top.

If you focus on the key components of your wellness program and communicate openly and continuously while creating and delivering it, you will lay a solid foundation and leave a legacy that lasts.

How does physical exercise fit into a full-time employee’s busy schedule? Often, it doesn’t.

One possible solution to this challenge is to make physical activity a part of the work day. Clearly, being active at work is constructive for workers. But employers also profit from having fit, energetic and healthy workers who are more constructive.

The challenges

Your job takes up a lot of your time. In addition to the hours you invest actually working, there is the time necessitated to get to and from work and take lunch and rest breaks during the work day. In the end, there are a limited number of hours left over for the rest of your life. This work life imbalance is especially true for Alberta, where statistics show that we work exceptionally hard.

Many jobs today are sedentary, and numerous American citizens drive to work. The pressures of work may also cause us to eat lunch at our desks and skip breaks. Then, after work or on the weekends we juggle household chores, family responsibilities and social engagements.

Worksite Wellness Programs: Get started on a workplace fitness program

Upper Management plays a key role in creating a culture that promotes health. The leaders at your workplace effect the various policies and the informal or formal practices, and these policies and practices affect your attitude towards healthy active living.

Begin by talking to your boss about the benefits of a healthy active workplace. The best way to ensure the success of a business fitness program is to have the management on side and cheering you on.

Ask your higher-ups to consider taking these actions:

• Send a memo or message about the importance of health and healthy living that encourages employee to take an active break each day.
• Provide for flexible work hours that help employee to be more physically active. By way of example, they might need to take a longer lunch break to go to physical activity class, making up the time by arriving at work early or staying late.
• Provide a meeting room or other suitable office space for noon-hour yoga or exercise classes, and hire a teacher to lead them, or use videos.

If your boss agrees to support a workplace exercise program, don’t forget to show appreciation.

You don’t need an on-Site gym

Only very sizable employers can afford onsite fitness facilities such as exercise equipment or squash courts. Still, most employers can take other affordable steps to support workers who wish to become more active.

For example:

• Arrange for discounted fees for workers at a gym, recreation center or YMCA facility.
• Install showers and a place to hang a towel. (Make sure the showers are cleaned regularly and that women who use them will feel secure.)
• Provide bike racks or a locked enclosure that is safe, conveniently located and well lighted.
• Hold walking meetings and set up lunch-hour walking groups
• Make workers knowledgeable about safe and pleasant walking routes near the workplace, as well as nearby facilities that offer exercise program (such as walking, swimming, running, yoga, stretching).
• Find a certified instructor to instruct employee about health, fitness and how to become more active.

Any size and type of workplace can encourage workers who wish to be physically active. It’s highly desirable to get management on side. Even if your boss isn’t supportive, you can still find ways to get moving more. Set up activities for groups and individuals, and encourage your co-workers to join in.