Employee Health Promotion

The Employee Health Promotion Committee must set out a plan for the entire
year that outlines accomplishing goals/objectives, as well as supplies details
for marketing and evaluating the program. The plan is the detailed map of what
types of programs will be provided, when and where they will be scheduled, how
they will be marketed and evaluated, and what the budget is. It is important
to plan your wellness activities based on your goals/objectives, as well as
the budget since different strategies will yield different outcomes. By way
of example, if your intention is to broaden awareness on a topic, then distributing
pamphlets or scheduling a one-time class may be appropriate. However, if your
objective is to change behavior, then different strategies may be necessary,
such as ongoing weekly meetings and support groups. Click here to link to Program
Design Options for additional ideas.

Employee Health Promotion Marketing

Now is the time to coordinate your marketing strategies! How can you market
the wellness program and ongoing activities? No matter how you decide to, market
often, keep it fresh, and remind employees over and over! Consider having an
overall kickoff exercise to inform everyone of the wellness program. Senior
Management must offer the introduction or invitation so that all employees are
aware of their support and leadership in the program.

Possible marketing methods:

• Sending email messages, including reminders
• Design flyers,
• Hanging bulletin board postings,
• Writing articles,
• Sending letters or
• Mailing special invitations.

Other Employee Health Promotion Considerations:

• Is the Employee Health Promotion promoted to all employees or to a specific
  group?
• Do you have a Employee Health Promotion champion (someone who is associated
  with different groups in the organization, and well respected) who can help
  in your promotion efforts?
• If your marketing efforts aren’t working, do you have a way to revisit
  and change your plan?
• How will you determine effectiveness and evaluate your program? And how
  will you gather the information required to evaluate your program?

Topics most often included in Employee Health Promotion :

• Nutrition
• Physical Activity/Exercise
• Tobacco Use Cessation
• Bone Health
• Cardiovascular Health
• The Spine
• Stress Reduction
• Chronic Disease Awareness & Prevention
• Self-care; Wise Health Care Consumer
• Screening Services (BMI, Blood Pressure (BP), bone density, cholesterol,
  glucose, posture, vision, and other…)
• Ergonomic Assessments
• Health Fairs
• Kids/family Events
• Others subject matters that employees have interest in

The subject matters and type of Employee Health Promotion planned hinge upon
the needs and interest, central objective and resources available. Program Design
Options include awareness programs such as pamphlets and/or education sessions,
behavior change programs such as smoking cessation and weight loss classes,
and environmental or organization support such as no smoking policies or healthy
selections in vending machines.

The programs planned also hinge upon the demographics of your workforce. If
you have a young, healthy workforce, you may want to focus the wellness attention
on keeping employees healthy and not need to screen for disease. Instead you
might want to focus on healthy lifestyle behavior such as exercise and great
nutrition to prevent the start of disease. Click here for more information on
strategies for keeping employees well, identifying disease early, or returning
employees to work who already have a chronic conditions.

It is also important to consider, and plan how you will evaluate the effectiveness
of your wellness program. The system needs to be demonstrated for tracking certain
data and recording events depending on the program goals/objectives. Step 7
discusses program assessment in more detail. And Step 6 will launch your program!