What’s Going on in Wellness, an Update
Mar 3, 2010
I recently attended the Employer Health and Human Capital Congress in Washington, DC, which takes place every February in DC and is organized by the World Congress. It was an exciting opportunity to go to the nation’s capitol right after healthcare reform had esssentially died and to see where that left the health and wellness industry and where it was headed. I had a great opportunity to interview some of the employer speakers about their corporate health and wellness initiatives, which we will be including in the magazine. If you didn’t see last month’s interview with Dena Pflieger, Global Health Promotion Leader at Dow Chemical Company you can read it at http://corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article-detail.php?issue=issue-7&article=an-interview-with.
The presentations at the conference were very educational and insightful, with most of the presenters being involved in wellness and/or benefits for most of their careers. Had I been attending as a beginner Wellness Director I would have walked away with many new ways and a lot of great information to take back and to start on my company’s wellness program. The exciting part is being able to share them with all of you! If any of you disagree with the below, please don’t kill the messenger, I am just sharing what I learned from speakers and attendees…
It seems that the general consensus was that no one wellness program can be successful for every company. Each company is different and has a different audience (make up of employees) that the company needs to appeal to. It will probably take a few tries to find out what your company’s niche is, but once you do it should be successful. There were many different programs that were successful amongst a wide variety of employers and their employees. A global company will have different wellness goals and successes than a domestic company. A larger company will have different wellness needs and goals than a smaller company. Even companies in different regions will need different wellness programs and objectives. Start by talking to other local companies in your area and collaborate to see what works because they might have employees with similar values, habits, lifestyles, etc.
Many of the larger companies represented believe that you must create a culture of health within your organization if you have any hope of making an impact with your employees’ health, or with your company’s ROI. They develop integration strategies and best practices before they implement a wellness program. This gives everyone a plan layout of what will happen (or what they intend to happen) amongst their employee culture. Start with a 3, 5 or 10 year plan for where you want your company and your company’s dollars to be.
Another agreeable statement was that companies need to determine how they want to measure the success of their wellness plan and/or program. Will it strictly be based on ROI and money saved over time or will it be how many employees they help to stop smoking in 5 years (as an example)? Most seem to agree that it is a combination of those two thoughts; that it is important in the long run to help the company cut costs where possible (especially with our nation’s healthcare costs continuing to rise), but it is also important to better the overall health of the individual employee so that they in the long run become healthier and thus more productive.
Many presenters touched on the importance of obtaining buy-in from their leaders. If there are no leaders ‘walking the walk’ if you will, then the folks in HR have little hope of getting their employees motivated to change as well. Every company that is starting to implement or already has started a wellness program knows that it is a top-down strategy on getting the wellness ball rolling. Once the decision makers get on board it makes the wellness staffers' job a lot easier to get initiatives and programs off the ground. Employees also look up to their company’s leaders. They may wonder how they made it to the top and if they see them making healthy lifestyle choices it helps to inspire the employees that work around them to make healthy choices as well.
Lastly, if your company decides to collaborate with a wellness vendor in order to implement your wellness program(s), most seemed to agree that you need to find a company that has people that can get along with their employees and get on their level of thinking. If someone can connect with the individual and help to motivate them to reach that weight loss goal or to lower the number of cigarettes they have each week than that person is priceless in the employer’s eyes. It is hard for HR to reach out and motivate every employee that works for them. By utilizing the wellness company it allows them to delegate the task of stimulating and encouraging the individual to the wellness coordinator or whoever it may be at the wellness company. This person has more time and expertise on how to inspire people to lose weight or be more productive and can help reach more employees overall in this manner.
The congress was a great learning experience and many great wellness stories were shared not only during the sessions, but in-between them as well. During lunch and at coffee breaks we took advantage of networking and making possible connections with peers that can benefit everyone. Learning from each other and hearing how other companies have implemented wellness is the only way to help grow the industry. Everyone needs to take advantage of these opportunities to gather with others in our field and collaborate in order to better the health of our companies and our nation, one employee at a time.
Unfortunately, the economy and recession has taken a big toll on employers' budgets. The overall consensus was that employer attendance was down significantly, probably due to budget cuts. One attendee said it was a, “ghost of its former self in the area of employer attendance.” Hopefully the economy will re-bound and more employers will start to attend again. Overall it was a great experience. The biggest thing I took away from this is that a lot of the issues discussed at the conference, such as collaboration of employers, etc., is one of the main objectives of the Corporate Health and Wellness Association, www.healthandwellnessassociation.com, and I am really looking forward to it’s rapid growth and how it will pull the industry together.
About Author
Anna Konger is the Assistant Editor of the Corporate Wellness Magazine and can be reached at anna@corporatewellnessmagazine.com.
