Employee Benefits | FJG/FYI
Promoting Health in the Workplace During the New Year
As employees return to work after the start of the new year, many of them will be working on their resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking, or adopt a healthier lifestyle overall. This makes the beginning
of the year a great time to start encouraging employees to live healthier lives. Elite Wellness, a corporate wellness company, suggests the following steps for promoting health in the workplace:
- Get management involved – This creates a trickle down effect, showing all employees that health and wellness are important to everyone.
- Establish a wellness leader and offer training – Having a well-respected co-worker lead the wellness initiatives can motivate other employees.
- Gauge employee interest – Find out what kind of help employees need and want in order to better structure wellness programs.
- Conduct health screenings – Hard data will help individual employees see what they need to work on and give employers a look at the health of their population as a whole.
- Start a kick-off campaign – The new year is the perfect time to build excitement about a new wellness program.
- Hold a nutrition day– Bring in a chef to teach employees how to create healthy meals, or host a lunch-and-learn about nutrition and provide a healthy lunch.
- Create a resource center – Build a company library with books and magazines about healthy living or workout DVDs that employees can check out for free.
- Communicate on health – A company newsletter focusing on health and wellness can provide useful information, healthy recipes, and employee success stories.
- Change company culture – Create an environment conducive to health by stocking company vending machines with healthy choices and eliminating unhealthy options, change to a non-smoking worksite, sponsor fitness activities, or subsidized gym memberships.
- Explore wellness outside of work. – Get involved with health-related community events, and encourage employees to volunteer or participate.
Source: Elite Wellness USA, LLC. “Ten Ways to Promote Health in the Workplace” October, 2007