Program evaluation may be The last step, but it ought to be planned at the onset of your efforts! Assessment helps you identify what parts of the program are working well and what parts need improvement. Then, based on the evaluation data, adjustments have the potential to be made to fine-tune your wellness program. Adjusting the program based on evaluation data is vital to its continued performance. Evaluating your program does not have to be be terribly complex. However, it is valuable to plan how you will oversee your wellness efforts and determine performance during the planning phase or Step 5. Also be sure to to evaluate the program based on the goals/objectives you already identified during your organizing process. In order to evaluate your program you must have a system to document specifics as you progress. This can be as simple as maintaining file folders on programs that are available, or a computer document with a table or spreadsheet summarizing information collecting. Consider:

• Program topic and numbers of employees who participated
• The numbers of handouts taken by employees or distributed and on what issues
• The number of participants in a behavior modification program and how many met their goals/objectives as well as how many attended all of the sessions
• Numbers of employees who continued the healthy behavior modification following the program?
• Overall employee satisfaction with the program or each topic.

Depending on your goals/objectives, gather desired data and compare it to previous data gathered during the initial assessment to determine if the goals/objectives were met. Such data might include

• Absentee rates
• Injury rates
• Health risk factors Insurance costs

Summarize and Report Employee Health Promotion Results

Once you have collected all of the evaluation information it needs to be reviewed with the Employee Health Promotion Committee and summarized. You will probably have positive results and some areas where a change is necessitated or additional focus necessitated for continuous improvement. This not-so positive information can be used to make any necessitated changes as well as to plan for next year and is valuable to include in your report. It is valuable to communicate the wellness program outcome to both upper management and employees. Consider how upper management usually receives reports on operations and productivity problems and include the yearly wellness program report in the same format. At some organizations the reports are made during upper management meetings using presentation styles such as authority point slides. At other organizations, graphs and bar charts are the norm or a list of the objectives and the summary outcomes published. No matter the format, it’s valuable to convey the outcomes and successes achieved, including any anecdotal stories, as well as areas for improvement. Be sure to link the outcomes to the business mission and bottom line whenever possible. Workers wish to receive the same information! You might use the same communication channels used when informing employees of the wellness program:

• Corporation newsletters
• Bulletin boards
• E-mails

Also consider celebrating successes and recognizing achievements by:

• Posting pictures from programs
• Highlighting performance stories
• Posting pictures of successes
• Having a celebration
• Recognizing champions