Posted by Employee Wellness | Posted in Employee Wellness Survey | Posted on 09-12-2008
Locating an individual to lead your business in beginning a Employee Health Promotion Program
Without a qualified Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator to lead and manage your business’s creation of a culture of wellness, efforts can be scattered and momentum can stall. While it’s essential that the creation of a culture of wellness be someone’s priority, not all businesss need a full-time coordinator. There are a number of ways to capture the time of a qualified coordinator.
Be careful not to confuse Employee Health Promotion Program skills with fitness skills. You are not looking for a personal trainer or a nutritionist to run your Employee Health Promotion Program. The following are good indications that an individual may be qualified to be a Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator:
• knowledge of community health, population health and worksite Employee Health Promotion Programs
• experience working with and understanding aggregate data, preferably Employee Health Promotion Program data
• experience managing projects, including developing timelines and facilitating meetings
• experience in strategic planning, including defining goals and related objectives
• ability to understand, and use the findings of, journal articles on effective Employee Health Promotion Program Procedures.
What will a Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator do?
The Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator is responsible for guiding a process that establishes worksite facilities, policies and practices that promote health. The individual may do some of all of the following for your Employee Health Promotion Program:
• act as a liaison between upper management and the Employee Health Promotion Program employee advisory workgroup
• interpret health-related data on your Employee Health Promotion Program
• establishe and manage work plans and budgets for implementation of selected Employee Health Promotion Program Procedures
• facilitate Employee Health Promotion Program Committee meetings
• lead your business in setting measurable objectives for the Employee Health Promotion Program
• recommend effective Employee Health Promotion Program Procedures, using the evidence in the health behavior literature and national and/or recommended best practices
• document and report short-term and long-term progress on Employee Health Promotion Program Procedures and objectives.
Where can we find a qualified Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator?
Explore the following when looking for a Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator:
• Existing staff: Are there individuals on staff who have the background, or are interested in gaining the skills, to serve as a Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator? Is it possible to dedicate a portion of someone’s time (e.g., .5 FTE) to the position of coordinating your business’s Employee Health Promotion Program Procedures? If possible, budget enough to cover not only salary but also continued learning, journal subscriptions and membership fees for this Employee Health Promotion Program position.
• New staff – Can you hire an individual to be your business’s Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator? Would it need to be a full-time position, or would part-time be sufficient?
• Employee Health Promotion Program Consultation – Various businesss (e.g., health plans, benefit consultants and public health departments) provide Employee Health Promotion Program consultation on building a culture of wellness within a worksite.
An outside Employee Health Promotion Program consultant can advise an internal Employee Health Promotion Program coordinator and your Employee Health Promotion Program Committee on setting priorities and selecting Procedures. Or, you can contract with a Employee Health Promotion Program consultant to be your coordinator. If you go with the latter approach, you’ll want to contract with the individual for sufficient hours to carry out all of the responsibilities associated with coordinating an effective strategy.
