Employee Health Promotion

Wellness Challenges Are Popping Up Everywhere

Wellness Challenges are definitely hot right now and they are encouraging more and more people to get healthy and live better. Whether it is a city or a school or a social group or even a whole state, competitive spirits are being ignited by the challenge to be the healthiest team. The Wellness Challenges are usually about a six months to a year in length and they are made up of several teams, these teams all get points for physical activity, selecting healthy foods, and just making better life and health choices overall.

The best part about Wellness Challenges is even though there really is only way “real” winner; everyone that participates in the challenge is a life winner.

Wellness Challenges offers reward to Get Healthy

Establishing a Wellness Challenges in your office is a great way to get employees to participate in your established Employee Health Promotion Program. Have employees form teams and receive points for everything from attending a corporate Health and Wellness Fair to getting a health risk assessment to beginning an physical activity regimen. At the end of the year, the teams will win prizes based on the number of points they have accumulated.

Wellness Challenges Enhance Corporate Health

Not only will Wellness Challenges improve the health of your employees, it will improve the overall health of the corporation by providing benefits such as reduced injuries, reduced frequency of worker’s comp, reduced health care costs, better employee attendance, and better corporate morale.

Like we said earlier, everyone is a winner in a Wellness Challenges!

The 61st annual World Health Assembly is taking place this week in Geneva, Switzerland and at this assembly; the World Health Organization (WHO) is presenting its report titled “Preventing Non-communicable Diseases (NCD) in the Workplace through Diet and Physical Activity.”

The report calls for Employee Health Promotion Programs to be promoted and implemented worldwide.

Importance of Employee Health Promotion Programs

The report states that Non-Communicable Disease related deaths have surpassed transferable disease related deaths and have become the leading global killers. Examples of Non-Communicable Disease’s are heart disease, diabetes and stroke. In 2005, 60% of worldwide projected deaths were caused by non-communicable diseases. They are predicting that this health trend will continue through at least 2030.

Diet, caloric intake, lack of physical activity and tobacco use are the major risk factors in the cause of Non-Communicable Disease’s. Now more than ever, the understanding of the importance of health and wellness is crucial.

Employee Health Promotion Programs are Effective Tools

The report states that Employee Health Promotion Programs are found to be effective in improving health-related risk factors, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. The report also states that Employee Health Promotion Programs will improve the health of employees, improve the corporate image, improve employee morale, reduce employee absences and sick leave, increase employee productivity, and reduce corporate health care expenses.

Employee Health Promotion Programs Monitoring

Finally, the report mentions that to have a successful Employee Health Promotion Program, monitoring and evaluation through Health risk assessments and health outcomes are essential and should be included in the Employee Health Promotion Program implementation. The evaluations ensure that the Employee Health Promotion Program developed meets the proper needs of the employees. Employees should be reevaluated on an on-going basis to make sure the Employee Health Promotion Program is still working, or to see if there are any adjustments that need to be made.