Ryan, who recently shared her expertise in a webinar presented by BLR® and HR Hero®, is a certified Worksite Wellness Program Consultant and serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts.
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The 7 Steps to Your Organization’s Comprehensive Wellness Program
Here are Ryan’s essentials to building a successful wellness program:
1. Have a formal plan. While you may not always be sure which direction to head at first, your initiative must have a formal, written plan with clearly established goals. Not only will it make your wellness program more effective, but it will establish credibility, link wellness to other programs within the company, and greatly increase your return on investment.
2. Outline a budget. Without specific resources allocated to the program, its impact will be greatly diminished.
3. Designate a champion. A great wellness program should have someone who’s really devoted to doing the work, believes that the program and its goals should be a priority (rather than just random programming), and who can inspire other employees to follow suit. This person will need support from senior leadership to make this happen, says Ryan.
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4. Formally communicate the program to the employees. If your employees don’t know about wellness and how it relates to their work, any program to promote it won’t be successful!
5. Collect data. This information will tell you exactly what your employees need. Common sources of internal and external data include employee demographics, healthcare claims data, and surveys (which could include anything from health assessments to employee engagement surveys to culture audits).
6. Create targeted interventions based on your data. Based on what you’re seeing in the data, you can target specific issues in your workplace through awareness and education programs, behavior change programs, or adjustment of workplace policies.
7. Measure your outcomes and impact. We’ve often heard, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” says Ryan. Ensure you have metrics in place to determine both how your wellness program is succeeding and areas in which it could use improvement.
From wellness to engagement to development, the brave new world of HR is here. Are you prepared for changes that are unparalleled in scope and impact?
- Employees all over the world, many of whom you’ve never met in person
- Technological advances and big data
- Talent management challenges like Millennials managing Baby Boomers you once thought would have retired years ago
- Big data on everything from hiring strategies to retention predictions
- Sweeping regulatory changes in the areas of health care, immigration, and privacy that have necessitated massive changes in the way you do business
- And the new normal—doing more … with less
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It’s a lot to keep track of—and it’s not going to get easier. To help you get your head around big-picture strategy for 2015 and beyond, HR’s Game Plan for the Future provides a detailed rundown of trends, case studies, and best practices in the following areas:
- Recruiting and Hiring
- Onboarding
- Social Media and Technology
- Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS)
- Flexibility and Work/Life Balance
- Outsourcing
- Diversity
- Talent Management
- Employee Engagement and Retention
- Succession Planning
- Telecommuting
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