According to a recent survey, ‘Better benefits’ was the second most common reason employees sought new jobs. This is unsurprising, considering only 24% of employees feel their organizations care for them.
While these statistics are concerning, they provide an invaluable opportunity to launch corporate wellness programs that differentiate your brand.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to start a corporate wellness program, including common pitfalls you might encounter and best practices to consider.
Need a quick solution for implementing a corporate wellness program? At SoHookd, we provide ready-to-implement wellness solutions that are customizable to your organizational structure and employees’ lifestyle goals. Our wellness packages comprise webinars, challenges, and rewards to maximize employee engagement.
Book a one-on-one call today to learn how our ready-to-use programs can help you boost your employees’ productivity and morale!
What is a Corporate Wellness Program?
A corporate wellness program is an initiative, usually by an organization, to promote its employees’ holistic well-being, especially physically and mentally. Unlike traditional wellness programs that people can join and leave, corporations often integrate their wellness initiatives into their organizational cultures, so they become the new way of life.
Corporate wellness programs aim to influence employees’ lifestyle choices, like fitness and healthy eating, or address health-related issues like weight loss, diabetes, and smoking.
Benefits of Wellness Programs in the Workplace
Next, let’s discuss the key incentives of implementing a corporate wellness program:
- Increased Job Satisfaction: Corporate wellness programs show workers you care about their well-being, boosting their morale. Satisfied employees will likely stay at your organization longer, increasing your retention rate.
- Improved Mental Health: Health and wellness programs provide resources like yoga rooms, counselling services, and peer support to help employees manage stress and anxiety.
- Better Quality of Life: Corporate wellness programs improve employees’ work-life balance. For example, flexible work arrangements allow employees to plan their schedules to create time for fitness training and rest. Also, health and wellness initiatives promote employees’ emotional well-being and sense of community.
- Attract Top Talent: Job candidates often seek companies with positive workplace cultures. Wellness programs communicate that your company offers more than a competitive salary, which helps entice top talent to join your organization.
- High Productivity: Wellness programs encourage employees to maintain healthy lifestyles, causing them to take fewer sick days.
- Camaraderie Among Colleagues: Some wellness activities, like sports and team building, provide opportunities for employees to bond, which increases team spirit.
- Reduced Healthcare Costs: According to a recent study, investing in wellness programs reduces health insurance costs. The results showed that weight loss programs reduced insurance costs by about $2,200 USD per participant.
How to Start a Corporate Wellness Program
Implementing a corporate wellness program is more than procuring the necessary equipment or facilities. Proper planning ensures the program aligns with your employees’ wellness goals.
Below is a step-by-step guide for introducing a corporate wellness program.
1. Conduct a Needs Assessment
Use surveys to evaluate your employees’ wellness interests and needs. This helps you anticipate how they will respond to the wellness program, especially their willingness to enroll and participate.
You can also conduct an environmental audit to establish your organization’s health culture and impact on employees’ lifestyle choices and work-life balance.
2. Consult a Benefits Broker (Optional, But Valuable)
If you’re planning to work with a benefits broker, now’s the time to loop them in. They can offer critical guidance on designing wellness programs that align with existing benefits. This makes it easier to maximize the utilization of your health insurance wellness dollars and comply with insurance industry standards for approved ‘benefit vendors’.
Brokers can also help you identify trusted wellness partners and benchmark against what similar companies are doing.
3. Get Executive Approval
Leadership buy-in is crucial to implementing a successful corporate wellness program. Showcase how the wellness program aligns with the company’s strategic goals.
For instance, you could highlight how gym facilities will improve employees’ productivity and reduce the risk of injuries, saving the company significant resources in healthcare insurance and compensation.
4. Select a Wellness Committee
Establish an employee-driven committee to help you build organizational support and ensure post-implementation success. Emphasize cross-sectional representation so most, if not all, employees feel represented and their opinions valued. The wellness committee will play essential roles before and after implementing the program, including:
- Motivate their colleagues to enroll in the wellness programs.
- Communicate employee concerns and preferences to the HR department and top-level management.
- Monitor the programs’ effectiveness and recommend improvements.
5. Outline Your Organization’s Wellness Goals
The primary goal of any corporate wellness program is to improve employees’ health and reduce medical expenses. However, these objectives are too broad in the organizational context. As such, you should break down the goals into short-term and mid-term milestones that are easy to pursue and track.
Examples of wellness goals include:
- Reduce absenteeism
- Increase worker retention
- Boost employee engagement and productivity levels
6. Create a Budget
Highlight the projected costs and benefits of implementing the corporate wellness program. The expenses should be tied to specific program features, such as procuring gym equipment or hiring personal trainers.
Also, account for the proposed incentives to include them in the budget allocation.
7. Design the Wellness Program
Create an inclusive corporate wellness program that aligns with your employees’ wellness goals. Use the needs assessment findings in Step 1 to establish the components to include in the program. Popular wellness programs include the following components:
- Stress reduction
- Smoking cessation
- On-site fitness facilities
- Financial wellness programs
A considerable challenge when designing in-house corporate wellness programs is legal compliance. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) prohibits employers from designing wellness programs that discriminate against employees with disabilities. Additionally, the programs must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) guidelines regarding protecting your employees’ private data.
Given the huge legal liabilities of breaching these policies, we recommend outsourcing to a corporate wellness agency.
At SoHookd, we have over 7 years of experience partnering with organizations to deliver holistic, results-focused wellness programs that cater to your employees’ needs. We provide turnkey, easily customizable wellness solutions to fit your organization’s wellness culture.
Empower your employees with individualized wellness programs—contact us today!
8. Communicate the Wellness Plan
Write your organization’s wellness policy, outlining the program’s goals. Also, update the rollout schedule and reward system. Make the announcement catchy to attract employees’ interest, including program logos and slogans.
Also, highlight the program’s endorsement by top-level management to encourage employees to enroll. You could even request your CEO or MD to pose for photos while participating in one of the wellness activities.
9. Monitor the Program’s Performance
As with other projects, you must assess the effectiveness of your corporate wellness program to ensure continued management support and employee engagement. General performance metrics include enrollment and program completion rates. You could also conduct surveys to collect feedback and assess employee satisfaction.
On the other hand, track specific metrics depending on the program component. For example, employees could track and self-report their BMIs (this should be optional) to evaluate the success of a weight management program.
Common Challenges in Implementing Wellness Programs
While corporate wellness programs offer numerous incentives for your organization and employees, implementing the initiatives comes with its challenges.
Here are some common obstacles you might encounter when establishing wellness programs:
- Lack of Employee Goodwill: Some organizations struggle to motivate employees to enroll in the wellness programs. Likely reasons include time constraints or skepticism about the initiative’s effectiveness. The best way to boost employee engagement is by involving them during the design and implementation phases to create a sense of ownership of the program.
- No Clear Incentives: Surprising as it might seem, employees need incentives to take up health and wellness programs. As such, attach rewards to specific milestones based on each employee’s wellness goals. For example, you could offer paid gym memberships for employees who average 5,000 daily steps.
- Diverse Workers’ Needs: Designing a wellness program that caters to each employee’s unique needs can be challenging. This might cause some employees to feel left out, which hurts their motivation and job satisfaction. Conduct surveys to understand each employee’s needs and tailor the programs to their preferences.
- Sustainability: Starting a corporate wellness program is the easy part. The main challenge is ensuring its long-term viability so it becomes ingrained into your company’s culture. Encourage employees to volunteer as wellness ambassadors responsible for championing healthy living and to act as contact points between workers and top-level management.
- Budget Constraints: Small businesses with limited resources might struggle to implement wellness initiatives that make a difference. They will likely allocate the resources to core business activities that generate revenue.
- Privacy Concerns: Some wellness programs require employees to undergo health screening, which exposes companies to legal liabilities. Ensure your wellness program complies with the HIPAA guidelines regarding handling ‘patient’ records.
Best Practices for Corporate Wellness
Use our cheat sheet to help you implement an engaging corporate wellness program for your employees:
- Offer Incentives: Company wellness challenges with rewards, bonuses, and recognition often stimulate a competitive spirit among employees, increasing engagement. For instance, you could set up a leaderboard and award employees based on the number of hours logged in the wellness program.
- Flexible Work Schedules: Time constraints are a top reason employees fail to join corporate wellness programs. As such, flexible working hours allow them to plan their schedules, improving their work-life balance. Also, consider flexible programs like wellness webinars that your employees can consume on the go.
- Support from Top-Level Management: Leadership buy-in and participation, especially from C-suite managers, motivates lower-level employees to enroll in wellness programs. This helps increase the uptake rate.
- Simplicity: A recent study showed that 68% of employees didn’t utilize wellness programs fully because they found them confusing or cumbersome. Make the program easy to use to encourage employees to enroll and participate actively.
- Communicate Effectively: Communicate the wellness program to your employees, including the benefits and how they can access them. Even better, you could involve them from the start, planning and designing the wellness program.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Got pending questions?
This section answers commonly asked questions about starting a corporate wellness program.
How Much Does It Cost to Start a Corporate Wellness Program?
There’s no specific figure on how much it’ll cost to start a corporate wellness program. It depends on several factors like the number of employees, activities, incentives, and delivery format.
Our packages range from $6,000 to $50,000, depending on your organization’s wellness goals and employees’ lifestyle needs. Schedule a demo to learn which package works best for you.
What is the Role of HR in Corporate Wellness?
The HR department plays a crucial role in planning corporate wellness programs, including:
- Conducting surveys to identify employee wellness needs.
- Developing a wellness calendar and coordinating logistics.
- Organizing workshops to educate employees about the wellness program.
- Tracking participation rates and wellness KPIs.
How Long Does It Take to See Results From a Wellness Program?
There’s no specific timeline on how soon to expect results from a wellness program. It depends on the number of activities and the frequency of participation.
For example, a recent study found that a weight-loss wellness program was effective within nine months of implementation.
What Are Common Mistakes to Avoid When Launching a Wellness Program?
Below are common pitfalls to avoid when launching a corporate wellness program:
- Using a one-size-fits-all approach locks out employees with unique needs.
- Not communicating the program’s benefits reduces employees’ willingness to enroll in the program.
- Making participation mandatory.
- Not securing executive support.
Conclusion
The steps outlined in this article should help you implement an individualized corporate wellness program that aligns with your employees’ lifestyle goals. Most importantly, you must ensure that the wellness program is inclusive and accessible even to workers with disabilities. Also, the program must safeguard employees’ private information, especially regarding their health records.
We recommend working with a wellness program agency to streamline the implementation process. Our team comprises expert wellness coordinators to help you tailor the programs to your employees’ needs while ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and policies.
Schedule a free demo to learn how we can help you empower your team with our turnkey wellness solutions!
