Why Wellness At Work

Increased Workforce Effectiveness

Increased workforce effectiveness (a more productive workforce) is the ultimate goal of all employee wellness programmes. Leading New Zealand companies are increasingly recognising the value of their human capital and seeking innovative ways to enhance employee leadership and engagement. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, was recently quoted as saying that "if you take the top 20 employees away from Microsoft, our company is worth nothing".

One of the most widely accepted measures of workforce effectiveness is employee engagement. Engagement is the emotional and rational commitment employees have to their employer. At its simplest it can be seen as motivation. Engagement influences productivity via increasing the discretionary effort and retention of key employees. Engagement is largely influenced by employees' perception of the workplace. Having an effective employee wellness programme will signal to employees that you value them as individuals. This contributes very strongly to the perception of your company being a "good place to work".

How To Achieve Wellness At Work

Developing A Wellness Strategy For Your Organisation: 5 Tips ToSuccess

1. Gain management support

If a wellness strategy is to be ultimately successful in your organisation you need leadership commitment – it is worth spending the time getting this right from the start. Managers need to not only be involved but be seen to be involved.

Potential trap: Be careful about over promising and under delivering. Wellness programmes are not the answer to every workplace problem. When promising cost/benefits to management be conservative. When ROIs of greater than 3:1 are promised it is good to be suspicious.

2. Align your wellness strategy with the overall business strategy for your organisation

- What is the key driver for your business?

- To what extent does employee productivity drive your bottom line?
- How do your employees currently perceive your organisation’s response to health and wellbeing?

Ideally, health and wellness should be integrated into the way your company interacts with people. Try and make your company's health offer an acknowledged part of the retention and recruitment strategy. Consider including a flexible work hours policy and work/life balance polices under the wellness umbrella.

3. Build a healthy culture

Embed health activities into the way your company talks, acts and does business.

A comprehensive health and wellness programme leverages 3 key components:

- The actual health promoting activities
- A supportive environment

- Organisational practices and polices

4. Measurement and evaluation – Always!

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. Accurate and credible evaluation of your wellness programme initiatives is absolutely crucial in order to quantify the benefits of the wellness programme to your company and measure return on investment.

5. Sustainability of your wellness programme

Plan how you will sustain your wellness programme from the start. A successful wellness strategy takes time to be effective.

10 Things We Have Learnt......

1		Employee financial contribution to the wellness programme. A sure sign of an effective workplace wellness programme is where employees willingly hand over their money to access health and wellness initiatives.
2		Communicate well - manage expectation, positive fun health messages, always use positive language, ensure promotional material is relevant to the population and customised.
3		Ensure absolute confidentiality around personal health information. This must be in place and be seen to be in place. We have found this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for some employees in signing up to programmes.
4		Focus on behaviour change. Ensure people interact with people wherever possible to build social support.
5		Have wellness champions at each of your worksites.
6		Use incentives to gain maximum participation. Everybody likes free stuff and prizes!
7		Brand your company's wellness initiative as this helps with recognition, ownership and longevity of the initiative.
8		Ensure credibility – your health and wellness programmes must come from a trusted source.
9		Make the healthy choice the easy choice. Replace lolly jars with fruit bowls!
10		Ensure wellness activities are fun. Laughter really is the best medicine.

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