Employee Health Promotion

Wellness programs are one of the many ways for corporations to encourage their workers to become healthier person.  The ways that workers behave, eat, and live inside and outside of the worksite directly affects their work ethics, productivity, and mental health.

Employers can hope that their employees have healthy habits, but unless action is taking place and health promotion programs are created, the corporation is not taking an active role in gaining healthier and more productive employees.

While the physical attributes of an worker are often most noticeable, often overlooked is the worker’s mental health, which is just as important as physical health.

One way that organizations can include psychological health in their health promotion programs is to provide inexpensive alternatives or assistance with psychological health and counseling services.

Stress can also be relieved by massage therapy, which is a benefit that employers can offer as an incentive.

Physical health also directly relates to mental health; as individuals  who are in better physical health ordinarily find that physical exercise helps to alleviate stress.

Organizations can encourage physical fitness by allowing employees to take short breaks to go for a walk, discounts on health and fitness center memberships, and informational meetings to give tips and ideas about keeping in shape.

Many organizations also offer lunchtime classes such as aerobics or yoga to encourage mid-day exercise. Some organizations even offer contests with prizes for staff who lose the most weight over a reasonable amount of time.

While physical health is sometimes more apparent than mental health, mental health often has a greater affect on personnel. Without wellness programs and encouragement to remain mentally healthy, personnel are more likely to become stressed.

And when an employee is stressed, burned out, or distracted by personal issues, that employee becomes less productive and a greater financial burden on the business.

Employee health promotion is important to the U.S.’s workforce. There’s definitely room for health promotion programs. Nonetheless, some groups do not support health promotion programs in the worksite. Here are two common reasons why -

Corporate Wellnes and Privacy Rights

Privacy rights seem to be the primary opposition to wellness programs. Some people  believe that corporations have no right to tell staff members to eat healthy or lose twenty pounds.

This opinion seems to be made stronger by the hundreds of organizations seeking the help of law firms to begin more assertive health promotion programs. What a individuals does with his/her body is definitely a privacy issue.

Nevertheless, health promotion programs were initiated to be encouraging ways to help staff get fit by offering incentives and free health programs. If employee health promotion is brought back to its original mission and participation was not monitored or mandatory, there would be far less privacy issues.

Employee Health Promotion –  Incentives or Penalties

Consequences rarely motivate someone like incentives do. Groups opposing wellness programs are citing that some corporations are threatening unhealthful staff with consequences for not participating or succeeding in their wellness program.

An example of such a case is a corporation based in Indianapolis that began deducting $10.00 from each paycheck for every staff member with a Body Mass Index above 29.9 because not enough staff members were utilizing the company’s wellness program.

Workers are much more likely to participate in health promotion programs if there are incentives such as cash bonuses, time off work or free products rather than the threats of consequences.

Even though both of these reasons are precise ones to oppose wellness programs, both issues can easily be resolved by bringing company wellness back to its main mission.

These programs were not meant to invade privacy or punish unhealthy person, and the majority does not. They were and are meant to be a benefit to both the business and worker.

By stimulating and supporting wellness program participants, companies will likely experience success.