Employee Health Promotion

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people shift their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, shift behavior, and create environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Employee Health Promotion : Action Steps

The process of assembling a Employee Health Promotion involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your employeesIdentifying the current health status of your employees
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and launching the programs
• Building in motivational incentives
• Measuring the influence
• Revising programs based on evaluation outcomes

It may even include planning policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your worksite (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Employee Health Promotion

• Conduct an business assessment
• Get upper management backing
• Establish a Employee Health Promotion Committee
• Get employee input
• Design goals/objectives
• Design and enable program activities
• Identify incentives
• Review outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through inclusive Employee Health Promotion Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help employees live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs. In fact, one of the goals/objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to stimulate the proportion of employees that participate in a inclusive Employee Health Promotion at their worksite to 75 percent.

Often individuals avoid low fat foods because they think these foods do not taste great. To help inform employees, purchase a variety of low fat foods and put them out in a conference room for an hour or so for a drop-in tasting session. Or, arrange for low-fat potlucks encouraging employees to bring and share their favorite low fat or healthy dishes. Considerations:

• Make sure the selections actually taste great.
• Provide a “fact sheet” with the names and price of the various products to assist participants if they want to purchase these products from the grocery store.
• Provide other written information on great diet for any interested participants to take. Make use of websites and other resources specified in the Resource Section at the end of this guide.
• Provide small tasting spoons or wooden ice cream tasters.
• It doesn’t require much of each item to give participants a taste of the meals or dish. It is not crucial to buy enough, or bring enough, food to offer a meal.
• Plan the tasting room after lunch so participants can go in on their own and sample.
• Watch for overly sugary items…sometimes low fat means elevated sugar – so be sure to look at the label.
• Examples of purchases for a worksite sampling might include: two boxes of low fat crackers, a package of low fat cheese, a box of low fat cookies, two or three low fat spreads such as hummus, low fat cream cheese, a package of honey nut or other flavored rice crackers, and one or two other low fat items.
• Position signs on the table politely reminding participants that the idea is to sample, not have a meal.
• Provide a beverage such as a new kind of fruit juice or herbal tea.