Implementing a wellness program is no small feat. It takes time, commitment, and an effective strategy. While there is no one-size-fits-all plan for everyone when it comes to employee wellness, if you remember these five steps, you will be setup for success. Here are five steps to creating a long-term wellness strategy.
5 Steps to Creating a Long-Term Wellness Strategy
1. Identify and evaluate the areas of opportunity.
First you need to identify and evaluate the areas of opportunity when it comes to the health and well-being of your organization. Start by assessing company culture and the overall health of your employees. This could look like...
- Completing employee interest surveys or wellness audits
- Asking employees to fill out satisfaction surveys to see where they think the company could improve its wellness efforts.
- Running a company-wide screenings event to evaluate and identify health risks in your population
- Conducting a company wellness assessment. If you currently have a wellness program, this tool can help you gain insight on how to improve key aspects of the program to ensure you're getting the most out of what you're putting into it.
2. Set strategic goals.
Next, set strategic goals for your wellness program based on your findings from step 1. For example, once you understand the health of your organization, you could target issues such as diabetes, stress, or financial wellness.
It's important to consider both long-term & short-term goals around different aspects of organizational well-being, including, emotional, physical, financial, social, and professional wellness. Think about how you plan to measure these goals and how you can tie these more specific wellness goals to the overall company goals, such as reducing costs or increasing employee engagement.
3. Determine the support needed.
Once you know what you want to achieve with your wellness program, it's time to determine the tools you need in order to achieve those goals. Consider the personnel needed for consulting and strategy or types of tools and resources needed for communication. Utilize partners and experts to guide you through the process. If you do choose to utilize an outside partner to guide you through the process, make sure to choose someone who understands how to set the big picture strategy to achieve your goals. Make sure that partner is:
- Customizable (able to build on the program from one year to the next)
- Innovative (able to evolve over time)
- Has reach (appeals to a hybrid population, especially when it comes to communicating)
- Measurable/ benchmark (someone who will do the heavy lifting for you when it comes to reporting on success)
4. Begin implementation.
Now that you've got a plan, it's time to see the wellness program come to life. When it comes to implementing your new wellness program, it's important to think about the following things: program communication, simplicity, accessibility, tracking & monitoring, flexibility & customization. Again, turning to an outside wellness partner that can do the heavy lifting for you is especially helpful during this process.
5. Assess key measures of success.
No wellness program is effective unless there are ways to measure its success. It's important to consider the ways in which you will evaluate things like participation, satisfaction, engagement, utilization. Is what you're doing working? If not, how can you pivot to stay on track to meet your goals? When in doubt, refer back to your original goals. Setting and reporting on the goals of your program is crucial for measuring success.
Just like your personal health and well-being journey, an effective organizational well-being program takes hard work, commitment, and time. And if you're not sure where to start, refer back to the areas of your organization that you find are the most ready to make a change. From there, you can start moving in the right direction while working towards the bigger picture purpose, and using wellness to meet those overall company goals.
Want to learn more about how to tackle challenges around costs, productivity, and hiring/retention with a comprehensive wellness strategy? Signup for our free webinar today!
