November 25, 2021

Top Tips for a Successful Employee Wellness Program

Happy colleagues working together

Workplace health programs can increase productivity and reduce the extent to which health conditions negatively affect the workplace. Happy employees are also less likely to take time off work due to sickness or stress, meaning you can decrease your absenteeism and build a strong workforce. 

Ensuring your employees are supported in every aspect of their health through a great wellness program can reduce losses associated with high employee absence and training replacement employees. When your employees’ health and wellness needs are fulfilled, they are more likely to enjoy work, stay with your company, remain loyal to your team, and recommend your company to others as being a great place to work. 

Therefore, if you want your employee engagement to remain high and you want to recruit and retain talent, you should be focusing on providing the best company wellness program possible. 

It’s not enough to launch your program and leave it at that. You must reassess its effectiveness and adjust along the way. But how can you accurately evaluate your current initiatives? Here are some top tips. 

Determine Your Main Goals

When you are building a company wellness initiative, you must consider your main goal. What are you trying to achieve with your program? Some common goals include: 

  • Enhanced employee engagement 
  • Reduced absenteeism 
  • Stronger company culture 
  • Higher employee retention and loyalty 
  • Easier recruitment and retention of talent 
  • Improved physical health for employees 
  • Reduced company losses associated with absent employees or training new employees 

You may have more than one main goal but try to determine your top priority so you can streamline your program. 

Track the Right Metrics

The metrics you track depend on your main goal. 

For example, if you’re focusing on reducing employee absenteeism, you will need to measure the number of absences. If your main goal is to increase employee satisfaction, you will need to survey your team members at regular intervals to ensure your wellness program is doing its job. 

You may need to track multiple metrics to determine whether or not your initiatives are effective, but this is easily done when you are regularly evaluating your efforts. Often, several metrics are required to ensure your wellness program is covering all aspects of employee health, including their physical, emotional, and social well-being. 

Use Your Collected Data

When you are evaluating the effectiveness of your current program, consider the key metrics you will be evaluating.  Do you have access to accurate, real-time data about the health and well-being of your employees that  you can use to identify where their needs lie in order to best support them? 

Data can include health risk assessment scoring, program participation, step counts, or even the number of sick days each employee has taken or the number of workplace incidents and injuries. 

Final Thoughts

Continuing to search for potential ways to improve your company's wellness initiatives ensures that you are meeting the needs of your employees. 

Great wellness programs are those that identify and resolve any health-associated problems within the workplace and provide you with the insights to make necessary adjustments and improvements to keep your employees happy and healthy at work. 

Sprout At Work partners with organizations around the world to empower the health and happiness of every employee while driving measurable business results.  Contact us today to learn more about how we can help move your business forward.

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