1. Obtain Consistent Feedback to Improve Employee Wellness Program
No employee wellness program is going to be perfect from the start. Even if you properly prepare for this program, there’s a good chance that you won’t meet all of your employee needs immediately. You can correct this issue by obtaining feedback from employees.
There are several methods you can use to collect feedback. For instance, you could put out a workplace survey to inquire about the employee wellness program. You can also send emails that detail 5-7 wellness ideas and ask for feedback, which gives you the opportunity to implement the ideas that employees respond most positively to.
2. Promote Healthy Eating
You should take steps to promote healthy eating wherever possible in the workplace. You could replace any candy with much healthier fruit bowls. Another great idea that can boost employee engagement is to ask that employees send in any healthy recipes they have to create a company cookbook that’s centered around health and nutrition.
You could even think about including a healthy recipe in the weekly newsletter your company sends out to employees. No matter what you do to promote healthy eating, you should strive to be part of a lasting solution in this regard.
3. Partner with Wellness Vendors and the Employee Benefits Company
If you want your employee wellness program to be as robust as possible, it should be made with the help of trained and professional individuals as well as your company’s employee benefits provider. The insurance provider that represents your company could also have some useful wellness tools that you can take advantage of. Make sure that you have access to local wellness vendors that provide such services as discounted fitness equipment, yoga sessions, and cooking tips.
4. Use a Corporate Wellness Application
You can be certain that your employee wellness program is properly implemented by organizing it with a corporate wellness application. These apps can be quickly downloaded to any smartphone and will provide employees with daily workout suggestions, health tips, and health monitoring features. There are many apps at your disposal. Make sure that the one you choose fulfills the specific health and wellness needs that your employees have.
5. Personalize Employee Health
The only way for practically every employee to start focusing on health and wellness is to personalize employee health. If your business only offers a couple of wellness activities, a high percentage of your employees may not find interest in either activity.
However, offering a multitude of wellness activities means that your employees can select the ones that best suit their preferences. While some employees will enjoy relaxing and peaceful activities like walking, other employees might want to focus on mindfulness activities.
6. Make Sure Employees Remain Hydrated
Consistent productivity among your employees depends on these employees being properly hydrated from the very beginning of the day. Make sure that you have enough juicers and water coolers around the workplace to meet employee needs. While water is the best solution for hydration, you should know that juice, meat, and fruit can also help your employees remain hydrated.
7. Aim to Build Healthy Habits
The key to a sustained employee wellness program is to help your employees build healthy habits that will last for years. No matter the time of the year, it’s common for employees to catch a cold or experience allergies. When employees become sick, they should adhere to some basic healthy habits that will keep germs from spreading.
You can promote healthy habits in the workplace by providing flu shots at the office, placing tissues and hand sanitizer around the workplace, and putting handwashing posters at different spots in employee bathrooms.
8. Encourage Paid Time Off
It’s highly recommended that you encourage your employees to actually use the PTO that they have. Some employees avoid using PTO because they want to be the “perfect” worker. However, working without any substantive breaks can tire out anyone. It’s important that employees get some extra time off every now and then to recharge their batteries. Encouraging your employees to take paid time off should bolster productivity.
9. Facilitate Stress Relief
When employees have busy schedules, stress will invariably build over time. Whenever one of your employees is stressed, it’s likely that their productivity will be relatively low. High stress accumulation is particularly common towards the end of lengthy projects. You should show employees that you’re taking their mental health into account by encouraging numerous breaks during the day.
10. Put Program Guidelines in Writing
Once you’ve developed a comprehensive employee wellness program, you should put all of your program guidelines into writing. Doing so will make the program much more structured and easier to adhere to. These guidelines should be included in your employee handbook for the best results, which can also help with recruitment efforts. Whether you have a weekly or monthly newsletter that’s sent to employees, some of the health and wellness guidelines your company has adopted should be placed into each newsletter as a reminder.
Keeping your employees healthy and motivated is the most effective way to boost productivity and morale. While employees wellness programs can include everything from stress reduction programs to health risk assessments, the 10 tips mentioned above should provide you with a great starting point when trying to improvement employee and corporate health.