Corporate Wellness Program implementation often requires changes to established business processes. These changes may be simple, such as adding prescreening appointments to the scheduling process, or more complicated, like determining how time devoted to a particular Corporate Wellness Program will be coded.

Not all change can be affected painlessly. However, developing a plan for achieving change will overcome barriers like:

“But we’ve always done it that way” or “But we’ve never done it that way.”

Each change situation will be different. The path to achieving change may not always be straightforward.

Lesson learned: Making small, incremental changes will be easier than trying to make one big change. It is also easier to modify a current process than to introduce a brand new one.

Develop a road map for change.

Describe the current business process.
• By way of example: what is the current registration process for the weight management program? Include steps for both members and staff.

Identify where the new or modified business process could fit into the current process.
• By way of example, prescreening appointments for the weight management program could be scheduled when members sign up OR the prescreening could be done at the first class.

Collaborate.
• Look at the change process to be a team effort. Determine everyone who will be affected by the change and get their input.
o By way of example, be sure to ask the personnel that set up the prescreening appointments AND the personnel that would do the prescreening for their ideas.
• Recruit one or more champions for the change. It helps if the champion has some clout.
• Get buy-in from as many employees as you can – including those that might be most resistant to the change.

Communicate.
• Don’t keep the change a secret. The more employees know, the more likely they will support a change.
• Anticipate barriers ahead of time. Be ready to articulate concrete benefits that will result from the change – especially advantages such as costs avoided or training time conserved.

Why evaluate your Corporate Wellness Program?

Corporate Wellness Program evaluation answers these questions:
• What change(s) occurred in the target population?
• ‘What’s in it’ for Upper Management?
• Are the resources that are being used worth the outcomes that are achieved?
• Were Corporate Wellness Program outcomes expected? (Unexpected outcomes may have occurred.)
• What Corporate Wellness Program areas need improvement?

Corporate Wellness Program Fact of Life:

Corporate Wellness Program evaluation left to “chance” or until “there is time” will never happen.

• Corporate Wellness Program evaluation should be considered as an essential part of the whole plan for Wellness and not as something extra.

Where do you start?

Keep it simple. Corporate Wellness Program evaluation does not have to be complicated.
• Get baseline information.
• Baseline information is the health status of the target population at the beginning of the Corporate Wellness Program.
• Start by collecting just 3 or 4 key items as the baseline. You will have better success collecting follow-up information later if you only need to get a few pieces of information.
• Don’t rely only on health indicators that require lab evaluation. Also use self-report information and health indicators that are measurable without lab tests.

• Collect information that relates to readiness.
• You should always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Corporate Wellness Program impacts readiness. Plan ahead to collect information that will demonstrate this connection.
• Think like Upper Management: what Corporate Wellness Program outcomes will be important from Upper Management point of view?

• It’s never too late to incorporate Corporate Wellness Program evaluation into Corporate Wellness Programs.
• If your Corporate Wellness Program is already up and running and you didn’t plan for information collection ahead of time, start collecting information NOW.
• If you don’t have baseline information, then collect interim information and compare that to end-of-program information.
• Or, you can compare final Corporate Wellness Program outcomes to similar initiatives elsewhere.

If you can’t make any comparisons to other information, use resources like The Community Guide (http://www.thecommunityguide.org/ ) that have already evaluated the effectiveness of Corporate Wellness Program components. Compare the components of your Corporate Wellness Program to those that have been proven effective elsewhere.

• Look at the “what if’s?”
• What if your classroom space is suddenly no longer available?
• What if you can’t hold the Health and Wellness in the usual place?
• Have a ‘Plan B’ (or even Plan C or Plan D) in mind for when the “what if’s” happen.

• Build a team that can help with the Corporate Wellness Program
• Who else could teach the health education class if the regular instructor cancels at the last minute?
• Know what areas of expertise your staff has besides their ‘main’ job. By way of example, find out who has fitness instructor credentials besides just the physical therapist.
• Don’t wait for a crisis before you build a network of employees that you can call on.

• Be ready to roll your sleeves up
• Jump in to fill a gap if you need to.
• YOU may have to help restock the milk case in the dining facility when the Dairy Month ‘Milk Mustache’ contest results in increased sales during lunch.

• Be willing (and ready) to respond to feedback about the Corporate Wellness Program
• Get participant feedback while the Corporate Wellness Program is ongoing. Then be ready to adapt to those suggestions.
• By way of example, if kids in a pediatric obesity Corporate Wellness Program fight the idea of completing physical fitness logs, then get a verbal summary of their activity for the week instead.

• Simplify Corporate Wellness Program
• If part of your Corporate Wellness Program is not working, try making that part less complicated.
• By way of example, if getting follow-up information is not going the way you planned, then make the process to get information easier OR decrease the number of pieces of information that you collect.

• Use lemons to make lemonade
• What do you do when the Corporate Wellness Program doesn’t turn out exactly as you planned? Look for what did turn out. Often, the ‘unexpected outcomes’ produce positive results.
• By way of example, one installation’s database to collect sick call data was made obsolete by a regional system. However, the installation database was able to be used in a different way to track vaccination information that improved delivery of care to Employees.
• At another installation, world events halted a new physical training program. Instead, Corporate Wellness Program materials were made into a fitness guide.

Getting feedback from Corporate Wellness Program members serves two purposes: to obtain information that quantifies a Wellness Program’s impact, and to find ways to improve a Corporate Wellness Program.

Building follow up into your Corporate Wellness Program

Keep it simple
• Keep follow up to information you absolutely require. A three-question survey is more likely to get a response than one with 20 questions.
• Use email or phone for follow-up. Use personal, AKO, and installation email addresses; use cell phone and unit phone numbers.
• Go to the Employees: go to the unit or somewhere else they will all be gathered (like the APFT test location), and get follow up information there.
• Give members a stamped envelope addressed to you, with a printed form listing the information you will need.

Make it structured
• Tell members right from the beginning that you will be doing follow up after the Corporate Wellness Program is finished. Be specific about the information you will collect.
• If you need to do hands-on measurements, find out if members will be coming back to your location for another reason (like another clinic appointment). Ask them to stop by while they are in the building – or, better yet, go to where they will be.
• Ask members where they will be the next time you will be collecting information. They may already know their next duty station if they will be PCSing soon.
• Plan ahead for follow up and put it on the schedule. Planning to do follow up “when you have time” usually means follow up will never get done.

Make it catchy
• Give members something to go along with the request for information. By way of example, if you send an email to ask for information, send along a yummy recipe or a timely fitness tip.
• Schedule a ‘reunion’ day to collect follow up information. Invite members to come back and share successes and challenges. Have some (healthy) munchies available.
• Have a silly contest – the team with the most follow up information wins something, like having their photos posted on a prominently-placed bulletin board or an eggplant trophy, or some other fun thing.

Corporate Wellness Programs: The Good

• A sampling of ROI for Corporate Wellness Programs: Bank of America: 600 percent; General Motors:370 percent; Pepsico: 300 percent; Citibank: 465 percent; and the Washoe County School District leading the pack at a whopping 1,560%. (Campbell,J., Wellness Improvement Experts, www.wellnessimprovementexperts.com, Albuquerque, New Mexico.)
• Companies with Corporate Wellness Programs have found a 28 percent reduction in sick leave, a 26 percent reduction in adjunctive medical costs and a 30 percent reduction in disability and workers compensation costs. (Health Affairs, Volume 21, No.2, March, 2002.)
• The Washoe county School District in Northern Nevada found a $15.60 ROI for every dollar spent due to a 20 percent reduction in absenteeism. (Hardy,A. (2005). At the Top Of The Class. WELCOA’s Absolute Advantage Magazine, 5(1), 14-20.)
• Corporate Wellness Programs provide the structure, encouragement, incentives and ongoing support that many individuals need in order to make lifestyle changes.
• Employees also realize returns on their efforts. FiServ, a financial services technology business, gave staff members who filled out a health risk assessment a significant discount on their health insurance premium. (Holland, Kelley, The New York Times, July 22, 2007.)

Corporate Wellness Programs: The Bad

The flip side of the argument centers on basic human rights. Do we want/need our employer to tell us to eat our veggies or lose 30 pounds? Some employers are doing just that and at least one lawsuit has resulted because of it.
• Three hundred employers have requested assistance from a national employment and labor law firm to institute more aggressive Corporate Wellness Programs.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)
• Clarian Health, based in Indianapolis, Will begin reducing employee paychecks by $10.00 for every employee who has a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than 29.9 because not enough staff members were utilizing their wellness services.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)
• Scott Rodrigues filed a suit against his prospective employer, Scotts Miracle-Gro, because he believed the business’s antitobacco use policy violated his civil rights. The business has a policy against hiring staff members who smoke and Mr. Rodrigues’drug screen was positive for nicotine.(Holland, Kelley, The New York Times,July 22,2007.)
• employee advocates are concerned that health discrimination may not be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)

Penalizing staff members by hitting them where it hurts the most, in their pocketbook, does not appear to be a favorable approach to molding human behavior.
Such tactics may result in increased resentments and retaliation, primarily in the form of absenteeism and presenteeism (decreased productivity on the job.) Voluntary, incentive-based initiatives, such as the one in the Washoe County School District, can and do produce results. A positive attitude on the part of management along with an opportunity for staff members to have a stake in the decision-making may yield the greatest dividends to both employer and employee.The motivation and resolve needed to change unhealthy lifestyle habits can best be derived from the basic tenets of encouragement, respect and support.

“Onsite Employee Health Testing” is a hot phrase these days, but it can help your employees with health management, too. When the pundits talk about Onsite Employee Health Testing, they’re usually referring to retinal scanners, fingerprint readers, and other high-tech security measures. However, if you trace the phrase “Onsite Employee Health Testing” back to its roots, it refers to the measurement of unique human physical and behavioral characteristics.

Corporate Wellness Programs are of imperative importance to the modern business. As a result, Onsite Employee Health Testing should be one of the tools in the arsenal of a forward-thinking organization.

Worksite Health Testings aren’t just a “feel-good” measure for your employees. Assessments of employee health help your workers to prioritize their well-being, which results in happier, more productive employees. Health risk assessments also build your database of employee biometric data. Onsite Employee Health Testing, when handled workplace by our experienced professionals, is hassle-free and smoothly organized. The biometric data we collect then can be stored digitally for years or even decades, helping you and your employees build better health risk assessment baselines that you can use to analyze employees physical fitness and the efficacy of your company’s Health and Productivity Programs. Collected biometric data can even allow an employee’s doctor to assess that individual’s health over many years, helping him or her spot trends and diagnose disease.

Onsite Employee Health Testing extends to a wide variety of health risk tests, including measurements of blood pressure, blood type, body fat, substance abuse, and susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. Collecting biometric data for security purposes – like fingerprints, facial recognition imprints, or hand geometry – can be dovetailed with our health tests to minimize workflow disruption.

Wellness incentives may seem like an effective way to get employees excited about Corporate Wellness Program – but is it wise?

This helps and encourages businesses to understand the importance of maintaining a healthy employees, not only for the welfare of its employees, but as well as the welfare of the corporate bottom line … then, yes, it could be necessary.

Tax Breaks as Wellness incentives

In 2007, two senators decided to band together to create the “Healthy Workforce Act.” This act is designed to encourage businesses to keep employees healthy and prevent disease. The senators believed that having a country focused on “well care” versus “sick care” would decrease the overall costs of health care for everyone. They decided to start with America’s employees.

The legislation, introduced by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, states that corporations would receive a Wellness incentive – a fifty percent tax credit – if they provide to their employees a Corporate Wellness Program that meets the following criteria:

1) A health education and awareness component, which could include Health risk assessments and Health Testings.
2) A behavioral change component – such as counseling, seminars, or self-help materials to empower employees to lead healthier lifestyles.
3) A supportive environment component – including providing meaningful incentives to taking part in employees, such as a reduction in medical premiums or allowing employees to engage in walking Corporate Wellness Programs during the workday.
4) The creation of an employee engagement committee – which would tailor the Corporate Wellness Program to the needs of the employees at a particular company.

If this law gets passed, many businesses will be scrambling to provide Corporate Wellness Programs in hopes of receiving the Wellness incentives.

Corporate Wellness Programs are more important now than ever. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, with the troubles in the economy it seems that the costs of business offered health care keep continuing to grow and it doesn’t seem like it is going to change. The article states that during the year 2008, United States businesses can expect to see an increase of 10% in health care costs.

This increase in health care costs is causing some small businesses to reduce their employee health benefits or get rid of them altogether.

Corporate Wellness Programs for Healthier Lifestyles

Corporate Wellness Programs do provide an option for small businesses. The corporations can provide discounted co-pays and deductibles to those employees that fully participate in the provided Corporate Wellness Program. Full participation means getting health screens, receiving a health risk assessment, and then working with their wellness coordinator to work towards a healthier lifestyle.

The healthier the employees, the lower the overall health care costs for the corporation. Just one lengthy hospital stay can almost deplete a small business’ health care budget.

Corporate Wellness Programs and Your Bottom Line

Corporate Wellness Programs provide many advantages to a company’s bottom-line. Corporate Wellness Program Statistics from Prudential Insurance show a benefit expense of $312 per individual enrolled in a Corporate Wellness Program compared to an expense of $574 per employee that wasn’t enrolled. Coors Brewing Company showed a positive side-effect of participant absenteeism dropping by 18%, thus greater production and less health care costs overall.

Corporate Wellness Programs are part of company Culture

The Corporate Wellness Programs, according the story, has been in place for 16 years at Lincoln, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The company has three full-time employees dedicated to the Corporate Wellness Program and the wellness of the employees, who receive workplace massages and a round of instructor-led stretching before they start their shifts.

Corporate Wellness Programs Assessed

According to CNN, one of the stipulations of the Corporate Wellness Program, which employees are not required to participate in, is that they receive quarterly checkups where assessments are completed on their weight, amount of body fat and flexibility. Based on these health assessments, the employees are then ranked from platinum all the way down to “non-medal”. To become platinum level, where you receive a company-paid climbing trip, you must achieve certain physical fitness levels and be a non-smoker. Smoking cessation classes are part of the Corporate Wellness Program.

Corporate Wellness Programs Result in Big Savings

The Corporate Wellness Program has been a wise investment for Lincoln Industries. By having healthier employees, they have seen an average of $2 million in savings in health care costs per year. The savings don’t stop there, since instituting a Corporate Wellness Program, workers’ compensation claims have gone from $500,000 per year down to less than $10,000 per year.

Corporate Wellness Programs are Are Becoming Increasingly popular outside the worksite, showing the ever-increasing importance of disease prevention and health risk management. Private insurance corporations, as well as state Medicaid and Medicare offices are working on ways to enhance the health of the people they insure in hopes to save money in the long run. They are finding that mini-Worksite Corporate Wellness Programs are definitely the way to go.

Corporate Wellness Programs Aid in Early Intervention

A recent article that appeared in The Indianapolis Star, businesses, insurers and government agencies are turning to “early intervention to change the behavior of those struggling with common but dangerous health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, heart failure and coronary heart disease.”

The strategies that they incorporated to enhance their beneficiaries’ wellness postcard reminders for different lab tests or check-ups; and possibly even phone calls from nurses to work with the patients to make sure that they are taking their medicines properly and following the lifestyle changes that were suggested by their health care provider.

Corporate Wellness Programs Provide Quality Benefits

There are more positive aspects to a Corporate Wellness Program than just the cost savings that an business or a state agency will see; there is the benefit to the actually patient. The patient is going to get the motivation and the incentive to get better or to manage their health and their health risks by having to answer to someone, whether that someone is a full-time wellness employee at their company or a nurse affiliated with their insurance company.