Corporate wellness programs prioritize employee well-being, encompassing both physical and mental health. These programs offer resources, activities, incentives, and rewards to boost employee engagement in wellness events and foster a positive work environment. Examples include healthy cooking challenges or 10,000-step walking competitions.
While underutilized in the US, the global corporate wellness market is projected to grow steadily. However, some employers mistakenly view wellness solely through the lens of physical health issues.
A PwC research showed that almost 3 in every 4 employers are offering some kind of employee wellness program to support and improve mental health. However, it also reported that employee engagement in these employee wellness programs was pretty low.
Lack of employee engagement in wellness events could be caused by many reasons, and not considering specific employee wellness interests could be one of the key reasons. Additionally, if word spreads that these workplace wellness programs are not effectively improving employees’ health or productivity, it may negatively impact employee turnover and retention rates.
A Harvard Business Review report shows that happy and healthy employees are more productive and engaged at their workplace. Companies can make their employees happy and healthy by improving their corporate wellness programs in these 6 ways –
1. Incorporating Technology for Workplace Engagement
The pandemic has forced many employees to work remotely, posing a challenge for companies to keep them engaged in wellness programs and work. This lack of employee engagement or proper communication could divide the employees from the employers. The current remote working situation has paved the way to incorporating corporate technology in the most incredible ways to ensure employee engagement and interaction.
Employers have made utmost use of their employee wellness platforms to deliver the best-suited wellness program modules to them. For those who do not feel safe getting out of home yet to visit the gym or walk in the public parks, employers can offer different wellness challenge ideas like virtual wellness activities, home workouts, and more. They can also accommodate online coaching sessions for the professionals to guide the employees.
2. Flexible Work Schedules
The pandemic has proved how vital flexible working schedules are for employees to maintain their sanity, holistic wellness quotient, and productivity. Non-self-employed workers who telework at least occasionally see significant benefits and few drawbacks to working remotely. The most prominent advantage cited is achieving a better work-life balance, with 71% expressing this sentiment. Offering flexible working schedules has been known to boost employee engagement, morale, and productivity. It gives them a feeling that the company cares for them, keeps them satisfied, and they can plan their tasks well to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
3. Providing Disease Prevention and Behavior Change Programs
Studies have shown that cancer and heart disease are the major causes of most deaths in the US. Offering preventative screenings, disease management, and behavior change programs can help in the early detection of employee health conditions and the potential risks, which in the long run can reduce healthcare costs. Preventing diseases and changing health behaviors can also boost employee wellness, engagement, and productivity.
Corporate wellness programs, like Wellness360, can include disease management programs and wellness challenges ideas that focus on holistic wellness and help employees adopt healthy behaviors. These programs can help employees understand their health status, the potential risk factors, and other aspects to set the right goals and achieve them with the help of suitable resources.
4. Include Wellness Challenges for Holistic Wellness
The pandemic has affected employee’s lives in many different ways – right from the social distancing restricting outdoor physical activities, the economy affecting financial health, to the isolation impacting employee mental wellness. A well-planned employee wellness program can offer all the required resources and tools through wellness challenges or other activities to help the workforce face their concerns. Be it mindful exercises for mental wellness, financial consultations for budgeting, or virtual health coaching to guide them through their wellness journey – the program can provide according to the employee wellness requirements.
5. Gamification as an Employee Engagement Strategy
If designing and implementing a well-planned employee wellness program was hard, getting the employees to participate and stay engaged is tougher. Most companies complain about their corporate wellbeing programs being boring and mundane, which explains the low employee engagement rates. Implementing gamification techniques like including wellness challenge ideas for individual and team competitions, offering rewards and incentives, and more can boost participation and engagement.
To ensure managing the rewards system and the gamification modules, it is important to have a well-designed wellness platform, like the one Wellness360 offers. The user-friendly wellness platform makes it easy to support and manage all the program modules from a single place while making it more engaging and effective.
6. Communicate About the Wellbeing Program
Most times employees are either not completely aware of the different modules and benefits offered by the corporate wellness programs, which reflects in lower engagement rates. A study showed that only 41% of employees are aware of their corporate wellness programs. This gap and lack of communication not only drives lower engagement making the program ineffective, resulting in a waste of the invested wellness dollars, adding to the higher healthcare costs. Constant and efficient communication about the wellness program, including the wellness challenges, upcoming events, and other activities is a great way of creating awareness to boost participation and employee engagement rates. Employers must also communicate about the wellness program benefits like incentivizing participation and rewards to complete the wellness challenges or attending events are effective strategies to ensure maximum participation.
An effective employee wellness program has the potential to help employees adopt healthy lifestyle habits and keep them engaged to achieve holistic wellness in the long run. It needs to offer programs and wellness challenges that meet the employee wellness requirements and also be flexible and scalable to meet uncertain situations like the pandemic and other health concerns. More importantly, it must cater to all the wellness demands and needs of the employees.
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective corporate wellness programs enhance employee well-being, engagement, and productivity. Despite market growth, many employers still focus too narrowly on physical health, neglecting broader wellness needs. The success of these programs depends on understanding and addressing the specific wellness interests of employees. To boost engagement, companies can use tech, offer flexible schedules, provide disease prevention, incorporate wellness challenges, use gamification, and ensure consistent communication. These strategies create a supportive work environment, promoting employee health and satisfaction, leading to better retention and productivity. For more information, check out Wellness360.
