Get Started Using These Health Promotion Strategies

There are numerous health promotion strategies involved in developing a worksite wellness program but once you have the right template in place the results will astound you.

Whether you are building a simple or complex health promotion program, here are the most important strategies I can encourage you to take when starting your own wellness program. If you get stuck, have questions, or need some assistance be sure to Contact Me or Sign Up For A Free Consultation. 

To get you started, review the following recommendations before jumping in with both feet. Each one of these steps will take time so don't rush any of them. 

1. Create and Build Support for Wellness

Getting support from senior management teams and buy-in from employees is crucial to the success of your program. I challenge you to find an effective worksite health promotion program that lacks strong support of both parties as they are both so important. I also recommend you check out the book Wellness Leadership: Creating supportive environments for healthier and more productive employees for even more information on building a health promotion program. 

2. Assemble A Wellness Team

Developing an employee wellness program is a lot of hard work. One person simply can't do the job alone. Creating a cohesive team composed of management and employees to help with the day to day tasks is very important to create a balance.

3. Collect Data Necessary to Make Decisions

Once you have developed a cohesive team, the first step is not to immediately begin throwing out program ideas and implementing them. A strong wellness program has a plan in place for collecting data on the organizations health risks, needs, and culture. Once data is collected, the team can create programs based on the data collected which will be more effective in the long run.

4. Compose An Action Plan

Creating a wellness program without a good understand of where you are going and what you want to accomplish is like walking around in a dark room. You really have no idea where you are and what to do next. Getting from Point A to Point B in this process requires specific health promotion strategies and a plan of attack.

5. Select Relevant Interventions

Now that you have the first steps completed in your plan, it is time to start selecting appropriate health and wellness programs. Common program themes found in worksites include tobacco cessation, weight management, medical self-care, physical activity, and stress management. The amount of time, financial resources, and planning each topic will take depends mostly on the health risks and needs found in the data collection process.

6. Provide Interventions to Support Change

While it is important to provide opportunities for employees to make better lifestyle choices is also important to create an environment to help them sustain change. These might include environmental policies, incentives and rewards, or physical modifications to the worksite.

7. Finally....Continually Monitor Progress and Change

Make sure that the efforts you put forth in your wellness program are making a difference is crucial. This is the final step but is one of the most important ones you can make. The data collected will be very helpful in sustaining management support for the program.Be sure to take time and put a little sweat into this process. You will be rewarded 10 fold if you follow the worksite health promotion strategies presented here.

Looking for additional information on health promotion strategies, program planning and design? The Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA) is a national organization with over 20 years of experience in worksite health promotion.

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