Wellness Program Incentives

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people modify their lifestyle to move toward a state of ideal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, modify behavior, and establish environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Corporate Health Promotion Program: Action Steps

The process of creating a Workplace Health Promotion Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and implementing the programs
• Building in motivational incentives
• Measuring the effect
• Revising programs based on assessment outcomes

It may even include creating policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your workplace (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Corporate Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an business assessment
• Obtain upper management backing
• Establish a Corporate Health Promotion Program Committee
• Obtain employee input
• Establish goals/objectives
• Design and start program activities
• Identify incentives
• Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to improve the nation’s health is through accross the board Employee Health Promotion Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help workers live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs. In fact, one of the objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to stimulate the proportion of workers that take part in a accross the board Employee Health Promotion Program at their workplace to 75 percent.