Bottom Line Up Front Corporate Wellness Programs

Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Corporate Wellness Program will help you get and sustain Upper Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Corporate Wellness Program.

The bottom line in Corporate Wellness Programs answer two key questions:
• How will participant health be improved?
• What’s in it for Upper Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Corporate Wellness Program impacts readiness.
• Think like Upper Management: what Corporate Wellness Program outcomes will be important from a Upper Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask members how they think a particular Corporate Wellness Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Corporate Wellness Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Corporate Wellness Program first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or implementing any part of the Corporate Wellness Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be improved? What’s in it for Upper Management?

Step 2: Identify concrete Corporate Wellness Program outcomes.
• Identify up front what the Corporate Wellness Program is working towards.
o By way of example: will members lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Identify any processes or procedures that will be improved.
o By way of example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Corporate Wellness Program goals were met.
• Look at what information is really needed to show Corporate Wellness Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important information points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when deciding what information to collect – consider how easily follow-up information can be collected when a Corporate Wellness Program ends. Getting follow-up information is often a challenge.
• Only collect information for health behaviors or indicators that the Corporate Wellness Program actually affected.
o By way of example: if the main Corporate Wellness Program goal is that members will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Corporate Wellness Program outcome (unless the Corporate Wellness Program specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Corporate Wellness Program cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Corporate Wellness Program elements must be included to move members towards the Corporate Wellness Program goals.
• The concrete Corporate Wellness Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Corporate Wellness Program on track. All Corporate Wellness Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and implementing Corporate Wellness Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Corporate Wellness Programs.