Good Worksite Wellness Programs: Individual Wellness
Wellness might be the fatal flaw in your Worksite Wellness Program. Is Wellness part of your strategy? Does worksite wellness stop when your staff members leave the office?
Wellness Continuity
If staff members don’t have the tools to pursue health and wellness on a Individual level, then it becomes easy for them to “fall off the wagon” and slide back into a unealthy lifestyles. If you have a walking program, for example, it should encourage staff members to build walking routes near their homes, perhaps with the cooperation of the neighborhood association or coworkers who live in the neighborhood.
Worksite Wellness Programs: Always on Your Mind
Your Worksite Wellness Program coordinator should have “vacation wellbeing” as part of their job description. In other words, you don’t want a Worksite Wellness Program to stop at the boundaries of the worksite campus. Instead, integrate Individual health and wellness with your Worksite Wellness Programs.
This will benefit the Worksite Wellness Programs in two ways:
it reduces the chance that the worker will come back to the office feeling unfit, overwhelmed and unable to resume their Worksite Wellness Programs; and
it shows that their organization is just as invested in their Individual health and wellness as they are
Like a marathon, Individual health and wellness is a long-term commitment and it’s difficult for anyone to do in isolation. Simply put, it’s easier to maintain your state of health when you know others are depending on you and watching your Individual performance. It’s easier to maintain to an exercise program when you have a jogging partner who wakes you up when you oversleep, or spots you when you’re lifting weights.
Similarly, it’s easier to maintain to your Worksite Wellness Program when you know your organization is supporting you and wishing you the best.
Don’t Dictate Individual Health
Just as Wellness surveys serve a vital function in building a Worksite Wellness Program, it’s critical that you involve staff members in designing an off-site wellness strategy. No one enjoys being told what to do, but everyone enjoys having assistance in tacking tough problems. Make it clear that staff members are in charge of their own health and wellness. Your role as their health management partner is to support, advise, counsel, provide resources and information.
Of course, don’t forget that part of Individual health and wellness responsibility is to provide good health risk assessment baselines so staff members can proceed safely on the road to better physical fitness.