A holistic way to lead a healthy and balanced life is what defines wellness.
We all are experiencing hastiness. Especially in this current tough time where work from home has become the harsh reality taking a toll on our physical, emotional, and mental health. From the one who is looking for a first job to the working moms trying to balance domestic and work responsibilities to the employee having loan burden, we all work in a competitive space with increasing daily demands.
To help the employees cope up with such a challenging and changing environment, a corporate wellness plan is introduced which not only provides health plans but environmental support for the employees to have a balanced approach towards life. The wellness program can be:
- Awareness oriented – sharing the information about the choices to make for a healthy lifestyle
- Activity oriented – combining the awareness with participatory activities
- Goal-oriented – measuring the end results of a wellness plan
According to a study by the American Psychological Association, “89% of workers at companies that support well-being efforts are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work.” Healthy employees lead to a healthy organization. By implementing the wellness plan creates a win-win situation that has a positive impact on both employees and employers. Some key benefits are:
- Reduced healthcare cost
- Reduced emotional reactivity
- Greater productivity
- Improved relationships among employees
- Reduction in absenteeism
- Positive effect on employee morale
Planning to implement an effective corporate wellness program is not that challenging. Let’s find out how!
Wellness is not one size fits all : Considering this itself is the true foundation to design an effective corporate wellness plan. An employer needs to understand that a corporate wellness program having the approach of ‘one size fits all’ would not meet their goals. Every employer is different having their own methodology to lead a healthy and balanced life and the corporate should bring that wellness plan that would bring flexibility and customization.
Customization is the key! The Corporate Wellness program will be successful only when the employees have the space to choose from the various options that the plan has to provide from pilates workout to cycling classes or from various yoga forms to meditation. By creating a wellness plan with a broad reach and diversity of options, the company can see a fair increase in enrollment and the desired result. So how do you implement such plans among your workgroups? Yukta Yoga provides you such a customized corporate wellness plan that caters to as many employees as possible offering a broad range of possibilities across different age groups at a preferred time
Conduct Surveys – Gathering information about the health of the employees is one of the most important steps to create and design an effective wellness plan. Based on this information an employer can find out which part of health and wellness are important to their employees.
Conducting regular surveys will help the corporate in many ways-
• Switching off those initiatives which are not a good use of time
• Making changes to the existing wellness plans and optimizing them
• Introduce any new initiative as per the employee’s demand
• Understanding the health culture and the environments of the workplace in general
• By knowing the health of the workgroup will help the corporate to know which wellness the program would be suitable to cater to their needs
Go for a simple plan
The key is to make the customized wellness plan but one to which the employees would make the most out of it. The simpler the plan is the more effective it will be. As per the survey, one drawback which most of the employees find in a wellness program is the hassle they have to go through while enrolling for any membership, reimbursing any fitness expense or paperwork that some programs require. In order to not to go through such complication, they end up not involving them in such plans considering their busy the lifestyle of lack of time-management
Make it simple
Offer one easy-to-use platform, where employees can opt-in for benefits, rather than juggling to find their own plans and end up being littered.
Awareness about wellness plans
One-time communication about wellness is never enough. This leads to convey clear information to employees and see how many of them have a better understanding of the ongoing corporate wellness program. Spreading the word is a strategic way to gain more participation from employees Employers should ensure that proper awareness is always present in the corporate as to what the wellness plan has to offer to each employee. In order to reach everyone, displaying promotional materials in high-traffic areas throughout the office and frequent communication is a must
Added benefits with the plans
The enrollment rate for wellness plans gets higher if the employees are receiving additional perks out of it. Such as flexible office timing, financial guidance or education, free skills up-gradation courses, and other voluntary benefits.
It would be an added benefit if an employee has the option to include their family members or friends in the wellness program. This not only encourages them to get social by involving other people but also generates a lot of excitement and energy. As a result, the members are less likely to opt-out from trying out any form of new activities
Incentivize the healthy changes
Simply introducing the health and wellness plan may not be enough motivation to increase the engagement among employees. As per basic principles of behavioral psychology, ‘People are driven to act by the positive consequences they expect from their actions’.
The approach of the wellness plan should be like bringing behavioral changes in employees from simply participating for incentive to actually making those changes as their new habit which is worth maintaining. Research shows, to increase the participation rate and engaging more & more employees, the corporate wellness plan should have wellness incentives like:
• Gift voucher
• Cash prize
• Extra paid time off
• Free lunch /dinner with family
• Free goodies
Measure your plan’s success
With the introduction of any initiative, evaluating the effectiveness of the wellness program plays an important role for maintaining the consistency of health culture and implementing such more plans. Healthy behavioral change in an employee is the most important tool to measure the success of the corporate wellness plan. To do this well, make a proper evaluation plan at the start so that you can monitor the data collection with time.
For example, measure the participation rates, reduction in healthcare claims, the completion rate of the wellness plan, reduction in absenteeism, how many have claimed the incentive, percentage of employees who stopped smoking or have lost weight, etc.
Besides all, a well-planned and effective corporate wellness plan needs support, leadership, commitment from the wellness plan provider, employers and employees, and management support. Bringing a healthy behavioral change in an employee or in the environment is a two-way process that requires fair time, constant try, and strong commitment for the wholesome change.