With all of the debate over health care in this country, there is one tried and true way for employers to keep down their costs in this area—taking an active interest in the health and well being of your workers. For businesses like mortgage origination, which have tight operating margins, saving money in the area of health care adds to the bottom line.
Healthyroads Inc. calls workplace wellness "a 'must-have' cost containment strategy," with real return-on-investment potential for any size business. May, the company notes, is Global Employee Health and Fitness Month.
It has come up with a list of best practices to help companies build a culture of wellness.
1. Understand your goals. Know the root causes of your increasing health costs by studying your claims data, absenteeism and other issues that can reveal the real causes of your increasing health costs. Then develop a wellness program that helps to reduce those issues, among others.
2. Know what motivates your employees. Set real and achievable goals, and then create a meaningful incentive to motivate healthy changes in your culture. Based on human nature, individuals must be mentally ready to make a change before they will engage in healthy activities.
3. Get senior management support for health improvement initiatives. Is there a manager in your organization who is ready to quit tobacco, lose weight or get fit? Encourage him or her to become champion of health and fitness, charting his or her progress along the way. Encourage your leaders to set an example for healthier lifestyles.
4. Build a champions network. Ideally, this network should consist of representatives of the entire company supporting any company-wide health improvement initiatives. Your champions are the eyes, ears, arms and legs of your wellness program and can help you disseminate information and provide feedback.
5. Provide consistent, multi-faceted communication touch-points throughout the course of the year. Oftentimes, employers want to believe they can simply "launch" a health improvement program, and those employees who need it most will participate. That is often not the case. It may take many messages to get through to some people. Vary the mode in which you communicate your efforts, using posters, emails, meetings, contests, bulletin boards, word of mouth and onsite health activities. Different approaches get through to different people.
6. Implement population-wide onsite health activities throughout the year. This will generate awareness and enthusiasm, especially when set up as competitions.
7. Promote a culture of wellness. Get your whole company involved in the process of health improvement. Encourage healthy alternatives at luncheons, offer healthy foods in vending machines, organize lunchtime run/walk clubs and send out monthly emails that keep people motivated.
8. Provide onsite educational activities. Research local or community resources available to provide lunch and learns, health fairs, onsite massage therapy or gym membership discounts for your employees.
9. Initiate and integrate. Wellness programs that are included as part of an employee's benefit plans (medical, prescription drug, disease management, EAP, etc.) provide a seamless program design that streamlines communication and education.
