Employee Wellness SurveyEmployee Wellness Programs – Corporate Wellness Programs

Ten Steps Toward Strategic Employee Health Promotion Programs

The Employee Health Promotion Program management world is evolving rapidly. Each month, there are new research findings that support the premise that Employee Health Promotion Programs and disease management have a long-term impact on health care costs. Many large employers that started Employee Health Promotion Programs three to five years ago are showing savings in health, disability, and workers compensation costs. Small to mid-size employers are watching all this and wondering where to start with wellness.

Getting senior management support and budget approval is one of the challenges at the beginning of a Employee Health Promotion Program. This is the case because Employee Health Promotion Programs can be expensive, averaging $150-300 per worker per year in large employers. Most of the savings are not realized for a number of years. This long-term investing is hard for employers on the move.

The key to success for Employee Health Promotion Programs is to take a strategic approach. Here are ten steps to consider when starting a Employee Health Promotion Program.

1. Begin with senior management. Without senior management support, a health promotion strategy can fall flat. Begin with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the organization.
2. Analyze the problem. Look at your health care claims and analyze the trends. Which conditions are driving your medical, disability, and workers’ compensation claims and which are modifiable? What’s worked and what hasn’t thus far? What is the long-term impact of doing nothing?
3. Hold an initial wellness meeting. Invite your key stakeholders both inside and outside the organization. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite key health vendors including health, disability, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing. Review claims and utilization information and identify key areas of concern. Look at current offerings and see how they can be tailored to the needs of the population.
4. Look at both healthy and unhealthy employees. Since 85% of claims are usually attributed to 15% of claimants, it is essential to reach those with the most costly conditions while also reaching workers who are at risk for developing preventable diseases in the future. Voluntary Employee Health Promotion Programs such as lunchtime wellness seminars miss many of the workers who need them most. Look at initiatives that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but do not motivate everyone.
5. Establish short-term goals for the Employee Health Promotion Programs. Establish some realistic short-term goals based on your key areas of concern. Are there any plan design changes that could have an immediate impact on spending? Are there some programmatic actions that could have immediate results?
6. Determine what employees are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where workers are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do workers have in the Employee Health Promotion Programs? What obstacles and barriers are employees experiencing when they try to change behavior?
7. Make sure you have a high-impact Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Your first wellness dollars should go into upgrading your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A highly utilized Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide a foundation for all of your future wellness activities. A good Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a trusted link to the hearts and minds of employees. At no additional cost, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide needed follow-up coaching and personal attention for employees who are working on modifiable health behaviors or involved in disease management initiatives. Nutritionists, fitness, pregnancy, and stress management specialists are all part of a high-value Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
8. Establish three to five year goals for health care savings and measure them. Get help from your broker and insurance carrier help you on long-term goals for your health, disability, and workers compensation plans. Establish program metrics that will help you to measure return on investment (ROI). Go beyond participation rates, completion rates and program satisfaction. Measure changes in readiness, changes in behavior, and changes in risk factors. Establish rigorous methods to measure health care savings over the long term.
9. Establish goals for organizational health. Look at the more intangible benefits of a wellness initiative and quantify them whenever possible. Include worker turnover rates, cost of new hires, worker morale, benefit satisfaction information, and employer of choice issues in setting goals. Establish ways to measure success in these areas.
10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a Employee Health Promotion Program strategy, a communication strategy, and a Employee Health Promotion Program incentive strategy that will fit with your corporate culture. Focus on integration of related components along a health continuum with communications that are focused, simple, and human. Establish a budget that includes key components such as consumer education, health promotion, health risk assessments, and regular biometric screens.