As organizations today continue to compete in the global economy, cost containment strategies will be increasingly important. Controlling the rising cost of employee ill health is becoming a priority for corporate leaders.
The emerging corporate culture in the USA is one which has an employee population centered in health, wellness and safety.
Developing a corporate strategy for wellness and disability management makes good company sense. The following eight-step process ensures a strategic, integrated, needs-driven and results-oriented approach.
The following process works best in companies with strong leadership and a long-term commitment to employee health.
1. Identify Your Health Promotion Program Champion
This individuals should be a leader in your company and a strong advocate of health. Normally this is an individual who actively pursues his or her own personal quest for optimal health.
The wellness program champion must’ve the resources and authority to drive the program forward. The program champion’s key role is to ensure the strategic plan for health is aligned with the corporation’s business goals, strategic focus and organizational values.
For instance if the organization promotes that “our strength is our people ” the health promotion program must demonstrate how programs will nurture and protect that valuable resource.
2. Form Your Wellness Strategy Team
The Health Promotion Strategy Team should include decision makers and stakeholders from areas of the organization that can influence health and the corporation’s bottom line.
These areas could include; finance, HR, training and development, health services, compensation and benefits, worker assistance services (EAP), advertising and marketing, facilities, health and safety, rehabilitation, cafeteria or food services and the union. A team of six to eight representatives is advised.
The role of the Strategy Team is to develop and implement the strategic plan, look for opportunities to promote health, ensure the wellness program is integrated into key areas of the organization, streamline efforts, maximize organization resources and wellness program examination.
3. Complete an Organizational Health Audit
The purpose of an Organizational Health Audit is to evaluate your existing wellness programs and services, physical environment and policies and procedures that support health.
It is also vital that you look at your organizational culture or “how things are done” around the business.
Members of the Strategy Team complete the Audit independently and then meet to discuss their evaluation. During the evaluation process, health issues and opportunities are discussed in preparation for the development of the strategic plan.
4. Analyze Your Corporation’s Cost Pressures
Cost pressures are identified by reviewing a number of areas including; benefit costs, Worksite Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) claims, drug usage, kind of paramedic claims, absenteeism data and employee assistance program utilization.
This process helps to target areas that may be positively impacted by a wellness program and to provide a baseline for reviewing change.
5. Conduct a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) or Worker Needs and Interest Survey
The next step is to determine your worker’s health risks, interests and readiness to change. A confidential health risk appraisal can accomplish many goals.
It provides a baseline from which to measure personal lifestyle changes, provides staff members with relevant health information, excites staff members to take charge of their health and assists in health promotion program planning.
Most health risk appraisals provide individual reports and a corporate report identifying high-risk areas in the corporation.
A lot of corporations prefer to administer personalized needs and interest survey to evaluate worker needs. The benefit of this approach is that the company is able to gather information on the employees’ perceived health promotion program needs and interests.
This information could be incorporated into the strategic plan. Administering a recent survey also has the added advantage of fostering a sense of staff member ownership to the wellness program.
6. Develop Your Strategic Plan for Wellness
The strategic plan should incorporate information accumulated from the Organizational Health Audit, your company’s cost pressures, and health risk appraisal data or worker survey results.
The strategic plan should include your wellness program mission, three or four objectives and several wellness programs under each objective. The strategic plan provides a framework to encourage, support and evaluate “best health practices.”
It is also important that the plan align itself with the vision, objectives and objectives of the business.
The sample strategic plan that follows was developed for blue jeans maker Levi Strauss and Co. (Canada) Inc. Levi Strauss and Co.’s mission statement and aspirations (how workforce interact with each other in a business environment) guided the development of the plan.
Levi Strauss and Co.’s aspirations include the following statement – Above all, we want satisfaction from accomplishments and friendships, balanced personal and professional lives, and to have fun in our endeavors.
The health promotion program plan included a number of components to ensure that it embraced this statement including the following -
1. A vision statement, which tied in with the organization’s aspirations.
2. An incentive system to encourage and reward the accomplishment of healthful milestones.
3. A recognition system to applaud success.
4. Friendly competitions between Levi Strauss and Co. locations to ensure a fun environment.
5. Opportunities to participate in small group educational health promotion programs to foster team support.
6. Initiation of support groups for staff members completing wellness programs (i.e. use of tobacco control support group).
7. Programs dealing with work and family balance.
Other information that was assessed and used to develop the plan included -
1. Business demographics
2. Focus groups
3. Cultural audit
4. Top drug report
5. EAP utilization
6. Employee benefit services report
7. Health and dental claims
8. Operational performance summaries
9. Health risk assessments
7. Pull together a Corporation Case to Support Your Plan
Your business case for wellness provides the necessary details for approval at the upper management level. The business case includes -
1. The Strategic Plan for Health
2. A proposed health promotion program budget
3. Marketing strategies
4. Program leadership options
5. An implementation plan
6. Examination methodology.
In presenting the strategic plan it is vital that you highlight how the plan aligns itself with the strategic direction of the company.
The health promotion program budget should include educational resources, advertising and marketing costs, rewards and incentives, leadership costs and supplies.
Marketing and Advertising strategies should address how the health promotion program are going to be promoted and rolled out to various groups within the company i.e. decentralized locations, high risk workforce, older workforce.
Program leadership should address how volunteers will be used, internal resources and whether consultants have been proposed. All play an equally important role in the implementation of your health promotion program.
The health promotion program implementation plan should incorporate the following types of programs that help create awareness of positive health practices, assist workforce in making lifestyle changes and initiatives, which support long-term change.
Awareness health promotion programs develop an awareness of the importance of healthful lifestyle practices and motivate personnel to take the next step. Examples of awareness health promotion programs include posting educational posters, newsletter articles and lunch and learn seminars.
Lifestyle change health promotion programs are more extensive and longer in duration. They are designed to assist workforce in changing behavior. Examples of lifestyle change health promotion programs are nutrition education programs, stress management programs, back care classes and smoking control programs.
A supportive corporate environment encompasses everything from corporate policies and procedures, the physical environment and building a corporate culture that supports good health practices. Follow-up sessions and support groups for personnel that have completed 6-10 week wellness programs also provide a supportive environment for long-term change.
Evaluating the effectiveness of wellness is ongoing. A formal evaluation must be conducted annually and might include; re-administering steps three to five, wellness program participation statistics and a year end survey to revisit “soft” issues like morale, wellness program satisfaction and future wellness program direction.
8. Solicit Input and Communicate Your Plan
Worker input is critical to the long-term success of your wellness program. An Worker Advisory Committee must be formed to roll out the plan. Another key responsibility of this team is to solicit feedback from all levels of the business to ensure buy-in.
Front line Manager’s Information Sessions and focus groups are also important. This group needs to buy-in to the notion that they play a key role in supporting positive health practices.
Regular meetings are recommended with front line managers to receive ongoing input, address issues and orient new managers.
Conclusions
The World Health Corporation’s definition of health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of illness and infirmity.”
In order for us to create healthy worksites, health promotion programs need to have have a health promotion program champion, have staff member ownership, be upper management supported, results driven and strategically aligned with the overall organization objectives of the organization.
Wellness program that embrace these qualities will have a positive impact on an corporation’s bottom line. Canadian research points to many case studies where on-site health promotion programs have resulted in lowered absenteeism, lower claims and increased productivity.
Organizations that have embraced wellness as part of “how they do business” have one thing in common. They demonstrate a commitment to their most valuable resource ?.” their people .
They understand the increased pressures associated with downsized companies, a rapidly changing workplace, an aging work force and the challenge of balancing work and family obligations. And they share a common belief that healthful workers are happier, absent less and more productive.
References -
Design of Wellness Programs by Michael P. O’Donnell. 1995. Published by the American Journal of Wellness.
Pro Fit-ability by Veronica Marsden. Group Healthcare Management. May 1997.
Meeting Expectations by Laura Mensch. Worker Health and Productivity. August 1999
7 Steps to Health Promotion by Daphne Woolf and Veronica Marsden. Group Health Care Management. February 1996.
Published in the Journal of Wellness for Northern Ireland, Issue 9, March 2000