It is a familiar problem for most workplaces: how do you get the people who really need it involved in your workplace wellness program? If you manage a workplace wellness program you know this story all too well. You run a health initiative and it’s your healthiest workers who get involved, but the 20% who could really get the most out of it, the group that you are really targeting, are resistant.
The problem lies in that taking the first step towards better health is hard, especially if you are not feeling the effects of your poor health right now. You may have a worker who is a hotbed of chronic health risks, but is functioning day to day at a level that they perceive as ok.
What can you do to get the people who really need to improve their health involved in your wellness program?
Firstly, if you are running a one off wellness initiative you are setting yourself up to lose. No amount of promotion will work. Ad hoc programs without rigorous and obvious ongoing commitment and support from the top will fail. These failings are glaringly obvious for workers to see, and the mismatch between what the workers are seeing and what you are saying breeds distrust. Wellness needs to be central to the core of your business – no start and end date, no one-offs. More about this HERE.
Secondly, if your wellness program has no start and end date, you can build in triggers for worker involvement at various stages of the employee lifecycle. Here are some examples of how some of Employ Health’s partners do it now:
- At pre-employment – this is first chance to get a snapshot of the current health status of your employees. Great businesses start a wellness intervention right here. Some of Employ Health’s partners conduct a wellness induction as part of the pre-employment process.
- Post work injury – at some of our partner sites workers can undergo work ready checks prior to returning to full duties post of injury. Here workers can be offered wellness interventions in continue rehab for their injury and improve their overall health.
This is obviously not possible when running ad hoc programs. That is why having an Onsite Health Hub is so important.
The Employ Health Onsite Health Hub model allows for a range of wellness initiatives to be available always. There is one place where ongoing wellness happens. No start date, no end date – ongoing. Yes, you run various campaigns with different offerings from time time but the key services that you can leverage to improve the health of the 20% who need it are are always there, and can be customisable to the individual always.
If you want to visit one of our Onsite Health Hubs to see them in action, contact us.
