You did the research, analyzed the trends, and decided to join the thousands of other U.S. companies now offering corporate wellness programs to their employees. It was a prudent decision that will pay both financial and health-related dividends in the long run.
But now comes the important question, “what’s next?”
Organizing a Program for Wellness Goals
Having a corporate wellness program is vital for the health and job satisfaction of your employees, as well as your bottom line, but it’s not something that you can just sit back and watch run on its own. It’s important to address what programs are working and what need improvement, as well as your future plans and vision.
For that we highly recommend setting wellness goals to guide your expectations and results. Draft a mission statement and set objectives to provide a means of measuring success. Set both process and outcome objectives to achieve your desired outcomes.
Successful Examples
Some process objectives to consider include:
- Number of participants screened
- Number of participants completing HRAs
- Number of promotional activities
- Duration of activities
- Leaders of activities
- Repetition of promotional activities: daily, weekly, monthly, biannually
Example of outcome objectives include:
- Number of returning participants
- Number of participants who lost weight
- Lost body fat
- Improved BMI
- Improved flexibility
- Quit smoking, or brought other risk levels back to normal ranges
Goal setting provides the framework for a wellness program. The most important question to ask is what your organization hopes to accomplish now that you have a worksite wellness program up and running. We recommend the S.M.A.R.T goal system.
What the Health Alliance Plan Recommends for S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting:
- Specific ‐ A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. For example, a general goal would be, “Reduce absenteeism”, a specific goal is, “Reduce the number of employee sick days by 20% by January 1, 2018.”
- Measurable ‐ Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward each goal. To determine if a goal is measurable, ask questions such as; How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?
- Attainable ‐ When you identify goals that are important to the organization and the participants, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true.
- Realistic ‐The goal must be something that the organization and the team are both willing and able to strive for.
- Timely ‐ A goal should be grounded within a specific timeframe so there is both a sense of urgency and a defined end-point to achieve the goal.
Follow these goal-setting guidelines and assess where your company is at. The next step after a successful worksite wellness program is to integrate total population health risk management, including primary care, occupational health, and pharmacy services. These services will help redefine the way your employees experience healthcare, while at the same time producing even more healthcare savings.
But it all begins with setting corporate wellness goals.
