When designing an employee wellness program, it’s important to develop an employee profile for your company. This will determine what strategy would be best for the health promotion initiative for your employees. The best way to create that profile is to carry out health risk assessments, which will help to narrow down the major health concerns specifically related to your employees. Once you’ve put a wellness program in place, make sure to measure the progress and health changes of your employees to gauge effectiveness and make adjustments as necessary.
Conducting Health Risk Assessments
The location and industry of your business will determine the demographic of your employees. Because of this, you can usually pinpoint health concerns for that demographic (especially since certain demographics tend to have similar health problems, i.e. obesity, high blood pressure, etc.). The industry you’re in will also play a role, since some job positions carry higher levels of stress or certain risk elements, which can also be a health concern. By conducting health risk assessments, you’ll be able to better plan your employee wellness program.
Motivating Employees to Participate in Health Risk Assessments
It’s important that your employees are interested in improving their own health, otherwise your health promotion initiative will fail. The first step is to bring awareness to the workplace. This could include sending emails or brochures about unhealthy lifestyle choices and how the employee health risk assessment could benefit them. Some employees are unaware the lifestyle they’re leading is hazardous to their health, so this could help to educate them enough that they choose to participate in your initiative. More employee participation can boost corporate morale as well. This means a lower turnover rate and higher engagement because everyone is working towards the same goal. Once you’ve collected enough data about your employees’ state of health, you can renovate your healthcare plan to cater to the particular needs of your employee population. With a carefully planned employee wellness program, you can lower your healthcare costs and improve the vitality of your employees.