Should My Company Consider A Wellness Program?

Are you personally a goal setter? Does the culture of your company thrive on competitive games for building camaraderie? Would it benefit your bottom line to save money on rising healthcare costs? Saving healthcare costs are on everyone’s mind, especially small business owners looking for strategies to reduce health costs, and maintain a happy healthy workforce. According to the Department of Health and Human Resources 2.5 trillion dollars is the annual expenditure for health care in the US; 70-75% of those expenditures are for treatable preventable conditions. Simple lifestyle changes can effect productivity, motivation and reduce healthcare costs. Investing in employees with programs to motivate change will create a better and happier employee relationship while helping reduce your expenses.

Do Incentives Work?

After teaching school for nearly 17 years, our owner, Olivia, will frequently state that adults are just kids in adult bodies; the same as they were in kindergarten. People respond to incentives! Do you use coupons? Carry discount or loyalty cards? Work to win points? Want to see your name posted for high score? Appreciate praise at a meeting of co workers? of course you do.

What type of program do you need? A program with quality promotional pieces selected for the types of employees in your location that is easy to control and administer based on your budget and time table.

For example:

1. Programs can be set up as pre-selected, pre-purchased and displayed on site. Programs like this can be promoted internally with special event days for recognizing employees that reach benchmarks.  

2. Company stores can be set up for redemption of selected merchandise.

3. Fulfillment suppliers can be contracted to provide the employee the ability to select their own products; shipped directly to them in a pre-selected price point determined by the employer.

How do you get started?

            If your company is large enough create a wellness committee or appoint a wellness chief.

            Consider inviting in a local hospital, they have wellness teams that can come in for education and assessment.

Are you a smaller company? Perhaps set some competitive goals with co workers with a reward for the winner or agree to have a walking staff meeting or a salad bar with items each employee brings in for the day.