Health Handouts : Company Health Promotion Program Design Options

The program design options depend on the objectives and goals and desired outcomes of your program.  If your objective is to help employees make a change behavior, lower risk factors, or save healthcare dollars then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be essential to support that design.  

Wellness program design options vary, depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining the same results, and therefore ought not be confused.  By way of example, planning activities such as an employee health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having pamphlets available do not usually result in behavior modification, but may increase awareness on a topic.  If the objective is behavior modification then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Business Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a corporation makes health information available and accessible to staff members.  This type of program can include pamphlets on a variety of topics, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most health fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors offering information and offering wellness screenings to staff members.  

Awareness programs are inexpensive and do not require extensive employee or organization time commitments.  Nonetheless, these programs do not usually yield behavior change.  Growing awareness isn’t usually enough to generate lifestyle changes for most American citizens, unless used to encourage staff members to register for a program being available at the organization or community on the topic.  An example of this would be offering information on the dangerous effects of smoking and inviting staff members who use tobacco to register for a smoking cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs often offer more information on a topic and can also provide time for questions & answers, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the corporation a little more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require a whole lot of time for planning or attending a session.  Again, building awareness and offering information may not yield the desired behavior change unless ongoing reinforcement or incentives/rewards are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or classes to offer health and wellbeing education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require more company resources, cost more, and also require more employee responsibility, time and effort.  The results are frequently the desired positive lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples are tobacco cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing exercise program.

Environmental and Business Support:  Environmental support is often considered the highest and most important level to include when starting your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy lifestyles.  These types of design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a tobacco-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Creating worksite fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy vending machines selections,
• Offering healthy food choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Organizing flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy snack machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing gym or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or offering insurance incentives/rewards for healthy lifestyles.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all of these options.  The more comprehensive the approach, the more efficacious the results will be.  For example, a business can have smoking cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can enable an onsite tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support workers to go to a neighborhood program; and/or on an environmental reinforcement level can establish a tobacco-free workplace and grounds, offer lower health care insurance for non-smokers, or support pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Employee Health Promotion Program: Components for Success

There are several critical elements that must be considered to ensure the success of your Employee Wellness Program or Employee Wellness Program.  These include:  

• Upper Management Reinforcement & Employee Involvement
• Active Workplace Wellness Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Action Plan Based upon Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Assessment of Outcomes and Program