Posted by admin | Posted in Workplace Health Promotion | Posted on 16-10-2008
The worksite setting is a effective, but frequently overlooked, element in managing worker health. Here we will identify some of the best-practices in starting a Workplace Health Promotion Program that supports your organization’s employee health strategy and allows workers to take charge of their own health. For example, a Workplace Health Promotion Program that includes a smoke-free worksite policy increases the likelihood that workers will try to quit smoking and will quit using tobacco successfully. Similarly, a Workplace Health Promotion Program that includes discounting healthy foods in your cafeteria and vending machines helps raise workers’ consumption of healthy foods which supports your investment in disease management programs for workers with diabetes, heart disease or hypertension. The following will guide you through the ten key steps in starting a Workplace Health Promotion Program and worksite setting that promotes worker health.
In an era of rising medical care costs and fierce competition, companies have a vested interest in the health of their workers. Research has found that, on average, workers with healthy behaviors (such as not using tobacco or being active for 30 minutes a day) incur lower medical care expenses, are absent from work less frequently, and are more productive when at work (higher presenteeism) than workers with unhealthy behaviors.
Workplace Health Promotion Program: Getting Leadership Support
Workplace Health Promotion Program support from the highest level of upper management is vital to your success in starting a culture of health within your worksite. Look for Workplace Health Promotion Program support from a leader who is respected by and can influence other leaders. (It’s not important that he or she be the fittest executive within your organization just that they directly support the Workplace Health Promotion Program.) You will be relying on this culture-of-health champion to advocate for changes that you recommend and to ensure the organization allocates adequate Workplace Health Promotion Program resources (staff, time, and money) to maintain and improve the worksite policies, physical setting, and social norms.
Obtain Workplace Health Promotion Program Staff and Budget
The creation and maintenance of a Workplace Health Promotion Program within your company needs to be someone’s priority. However, unless your company is quite large, you likely don’t need to hire a full-time staff person for the Workplace Health Promotion Program. There are a number of ways to find an individual with the necessary skills to guide and support your company’s Workplace Health Promotion Program.
Beginning facilities and Workplace Health Promotion Program policies, such as those allowing workers to be physically active during the workday, does not need to be costly, but it does require adequate and sustained funding. If possible, include the creation of a worksite setting that supports the Workplace Health Promotion Program as a permanent part of the operating budget; that helps to ensure it’s an ongoing priority for your company.
Staff Member Involvement in the Workplace Health Promotion Program
Pulling together a cross section of employees to advise your company’s Workplace Health Promotion Program ensures that improvements in worksite facilities, policies and practices address the true needs and barriers of all groups of employees. In addition, these workers can serve as the front-line Workplace Health Promotion Program supporters of policies and practices with their peers.
Create a Workplace Health Promotion Program “Brand” and Vision
A Workplace Health Promotion Program vision and a brand are effective first steps in bringing a Workplace Health Promotion Program from an idea to a reality. What would you like your worksite environment to look like five years from now? A succinct Workplace Health Promotion Program vision statement summarizes for all (workers and leaders alike) the reasons for starting a Workplace Health Promotion Program. It also reminds everyone of the link between worker health and your company’s ability to achieve its overall mission.
Branding your company’s Workplace Health Promotion Program conveys to workers that the company’s commitment and support of healthy behaviors is important and is here to stay. Choose a Workplace Health Promotion Program name and logo that resonate with workers. Then use that brand on all Workplace Health Promotion Program communications with workers about the policies, facilities and programs your company offers to promote healthy behaviors.
Evaluate Your Current Workplace Health Promotion Program Situation
Exactly how your company creates a Workplace Health Promotion Program that promotes healthy eating, physical activity, and reduces tobacco use will depend on the unique characteristics of your company and employee population.
Evaluate how the current worksite facilities, policies, and unwritten norms support — or discourage — healthy behaviors.
Gather information on the health and health-related behaviors of your employee population. The most common method is by using a validated health risk assessment. If you don’t have data specific to your workers, you can estimate the prevalence of different health risks and behaviors within your employee population using state or national data. Note: Information on employees’ health interests alone is not sufficient; but can be a useful supplement to health risk data and might help you set priorities.
Establish Workplace Health Promotion Program Priorities and Goals
Use what you’ve learned about the health of the employees and about your current worksite setting to determine your company’s Workplace Health Promotion Program priorities. From those Workplace Health Promotion Program priorities, define clear and measurable Workplace Health Promotion Program goals for improving the health of the employees and your company’s culture. Well written goals will provide the basis for planning and for measuring your progress.
Choose Workplace Health Promotion Program Procedures
Focus your company’s Workplace Health Promotion Program resources (time, energy and money) on tactics that are most likely to produce results: an increase in healthy eating, an increase in physical activity, and a reduction in tobacco use. There’s no need to guess at what might work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reviewed thousands of studies and has identified the Workplace Health Promotion Program approaches most likely to result in significant, lasting, and widespread improvements in health behaviors. Those Workplace Health Promotion Program tactics are included in the physical activity, tobacco, and healthy eating sections of this website.
The formula for Workplace Health Promotion Program success is to make the healthier choices the easier choices.
Implement Workplace Health Promotion Program Procedures
Once you’ve chosen your Workplace Health Promotion Program Procedures, it can be useful to arrange the work on a timeline. The “right” amount of time for implementing each Workplace Health Promotion Program strategy depends on the staff time, budget, and business demands of your company. Work plans keep your efforts moving and help to ensure that plans to create a Workplace Health Promotion Program stay on track even if there are changes in staffing or other challenges.
Educate and Communicate About the Workplace Health Promotion Program
Ensure workers are aware of the Workplace Health Promotion Program opportunities you’ve provided. Planning your Workplace Health Promotion Program communications allows you to communicate regularly with workers without overwhelming them at any one time.
Monitor and Report Your Workplace Health Promotion Program Results
At the same time that you plan your Workplace Health Promotion Program Procedures, think about how you’ll measure success. It’s much easier to gather information – or to create systems for collecting information — before you implement a Workplace Health Promotion Program strategy rather than as an afterthought. Keep in mind that you’re likely to see improvements in worker morale and/or behaviors before you see decreases in absenteeism or medical care claims.
Report both your Workplace Health Promotion Program successes in building a healthy worksite environment (such as complete implementation of a policy that provides workers time for walking during the workday), and Workplace Health Promotion Program successes in getting employees to take charge of their health (an increase in the number of workers who contacted the stop-smoking program, or an increase in the number of fruit-cups purchased from the cafeteria following a promotion and price-cut).
