Wellness Programs!

[Noname123]

Ok so coincidentally enough, about a month and a half after I really started to get my act back together and keeping my workout regimen and healthy eating habits on track....I've been nominated to look into and be the point person of my company's wellness program (gasp!). 

 

Now. I've never worked for a company that had a wellness program. I love talking about wellness/health/fitness and have worked in benefits (HR) for the past few years, however have 0 idea how to put a program together...so I have a few random questions for NFers out there!

 

1. All you desk-job havers, I see that this is a major issue for why people aren't active. What do you wish you could do at work (being reasonable that wouldn't have an overhead or detract from productivity obviously) that would help you stay on track with your diets/workouts/wellness? 

 

2. Is there anyone who actually works in Wellness out there that can point me to a seminar or webinar or basically anything that gives people a general idea on how to make successful programs stick? 

 

3. Say you didn't find NF and start your wonderful journey on this site- what do you think would inspire you to change unhealthy habits at work (if anything)? 

 

Thanks for the input, it's much appreciated I think my biggest challenge will be finding things that are of no cost to the company to implement...rough to find!

[fleaball]

Congratulations! What kind of company is it and do you have your own building/several floors of space, etc? I work at a bank. We don't have a program and it would be really hard to implement something, I think. But if you work on the 35th floor of some shiny tower or you're the only occupants of a building you've got a better shot. More details might help here.

 

Can you survey the employees to see what they'd be interested in? Ask if anyone happens to be a certified yoga teacher/personal trainer/something and would give a talk/lesson some day? If your company has weekly pizza lunches, try swapping for something healthier? Maybe start a friendly Biggest Loser competition or something? Google probably has better ideas.

[Noname123]

Congratulations! What kind of company is it and do you have your own building/several floors of space, etc? I work at a bank. We don't have a program and it would be really hard to implement something, I think. But if you work on the 35th floor of some shiny tower or you're the only occupants of a building you've got a better shot. More details might help here.

 

Can you survey the employees to see what they'd be interested in? Ask if anyone happens to be a certified yoga teacher/personal trainer/something and would give a talk/lesson some day? If your company has weekly pizza lunches, try swapping for something healthier? Maybe start a friendly Biggest Loser competition or something? Google probably has better ideas.

 

I work for a defense company that's a little....spread out (we have something like a total of 35 offices across the US), so I'd need to be able to create programs for program/location managers to utilize in very very different locations/offices. I'd have to come up with office, manufacturing and field rep programs to encompass all of our employee roles.

[AlleyKat]

If whatever you do has incentives, it'd be cool to have it based on the individual person's fitness intervals. I used to not participate in a lot of my old company's things because they were for the best 1-3 people out of the WHOLE company...pretty daunting. If you used some sort of reward based on percentage of bodyfat lost (not a good idea as some people won't have the bodyfat to lose...., but whatever parameter you decide upon) and used it across the board (ie: 2% = 1/2 day off paid), then I'm sure more people would participate. We also used to have an online healthy recipe submission area that was pretty interesting since ethnically the company was fairly mixed up.

 

People looooooves to do things for paid time off, btw.....guess that doesn't work for salaried employees, though... There was some program they were starting to use where your boss and higher ups could give you points for your work and then you could redeem said points for all sort of things....gift cards, trinkets, tvs, vacations (dependent on the amount of points) and that might work for what you are doing. I don't remember the name of the website it was through, though.

 

Another company I used to work for gave us gym memberships for free (they got a huge discount on a large group) and we used to pair up and go together. You may be able to use time in the gym as goal.

 

BTW....2 more days until LEVEL 2!!!!!!

[AlleyKat]

Oh, you may also want to contact the health insurance company provider for your place. They may have some incentive programs already that you can implement, and if not, they probably have some sort of resource person that can at least give you some pointers.

[AlleyKat]

....didn't see the no money part until just now. Ouch!

[Evicious]

Just some thoughts on free things you could do for your company's program:

 

A weekly email on basic 'wellness' practices, such as a simple bodyweight workout that can be performed at work during breaks (be sure to include illustrative pictures and/or videos) or a healthy recipe suggestion or lunch menu.

A basic Powerpoint presentation on gyms in the area, showing the differences in pricing, hours and equipment and classes available.

A quick-look chart of the basic nutritional and caloric value of common office snacks or meals from nearby restaurants, perhaps with suggested substitutions included, to put up in the break room or hand out to employees.

A printout of NF articles regarding health, exercise, and nutrition, or articles about new scientific knowledge regarding those topics, posted on the break room refridgerator.

 

Knowledge and incentive to participate are usually the two things people lack when it comes to their health. For instance, a lot of people have heard that more water is good for you, and soda is bad for you - but they have only a vague idea as to why or how it applies to them. It's a generally known principle, but they won't internalize it or change their habits until the information is personalized.

 

Additionally, a lot of people want to be more active on a daily basis - but they don't really know how to go about doing that, other than "take the stairs" or "park further away from the building". If they have researched more options, they may feel intimidated by the sheer amount of information ("Should I buy one of those fitness balls to sit on instead of my office chair? Am I allowed to do that? Maybe I should just work standing.... but my desk isn't tall enough for that.... Should I maybe just take stretching breaks instead - but my cubicle is so small! Will people think I'm weird if I do it in the break room? What if someone gets offended because they walked in and my butt is the first thing they see because I'm trying to touch my toes? Would I be opening up an opportunity for that creepy guy down the hall to sexually harass me if he sees me?")

 

Other people may be fairly active already, but not aware of available activities or services in their area. Things such as local running/walking/cycling groups, geocaching participation, hiking trails, rock climbing or bouldering groups, dance and yoga studios, swim teams, martial arts dojos.... An up-to-date consolidation of information on these activities can be invaluable in sparking people's interest and generating the motivation to become and stay healthy and strong.

 

Combining knowledge with incentive - particularly the kind that doesn't cost the company money - requires creativity and a good spokesperson. Possible ideas that strike me right away would be an in-office cooking class, assuming you have the facilities; or if you don't have a stove or oven, you could teach people how to make a tasty sandwich or salad. Arrange to extend the office lunch hour to an hour and a half, or even two, and this rewards participants with extra time off and a tasty social event. You need a good spokesperson to get the word out about it, and get people excited to participate.

 

Another idea may be to get the company to grant employees the ability to get off work a half hour or hour early if they participate in an office group walk or cycling scheduled for that time frame. Obviously, this requires convincing the company that paying their workers to exercise for a part of their shift is an investment in reducing the likely number of sick days taken, health insurance claims made, and an increase in employee happiness and loyalty - and that's another reason why you need a good spokesperson.

 

Because your company has multiple offices in different locations around the country, I'd suggest coming up with fillable matrices and forms for any of the above suggestions so designated personnel can maintain company formatting for the program while still keeping the information and events relevant to their locale.

[Vian]

The last place I worked at hat wellness programs. We got discounts on our health insurance if we completed 3 a year. Some of them included a 10,000 step challenge. We got cheap pedometers and kept track of how many steps each person got each day and whoever got the most got something (which kind of sucked for the people who spent all day sitting at a sewing machine). Then we had people come in and take blood samples and put it in a little machine that checked glucose, cholesterol, etc. 

[CelebrateCeleste]

One thing I can recommend is to remember that not everyone has the same goals.  Like NF tells us, gaining weight, loosing weight, building endurance, etc are all equally awesome goals.

 

I once worked at a place where they had a Wellness Program with an offsite coordinator.  He'd get challenges together, distribute educational pamphlets, and do send little reminders about good and bad choices.  I wanted to participate, but the focus was always about weight loss.  I had been sickly and needed to regain muscle.  I tried to talk to him about adapting the goals of the challenges so I could safely be involved with coworkers.  His response was "this program isn't going to be right for everyone."  Which is true, of course, but also disappointing, because I wanted Wellness too!!

 

So anyway, if you set up programs, keep it more like NF where people can identify their needs.

 

Celeste

[Laertes]

Agreed with Celeste on different people having different goals.  At my last (desk-bound) gig, our department sort of made our own "wellness support group" where we would talk about achievements and what we were currently working on, but everybody had a different agenda (eating better, successfully quitting smoking, starting a weightlifting routine, losing weight, etc.).  Just the concept that the other people around you were also working on their health goals was in and of itself a major motivator.

 

Question: Have you tried polling some of your coworkers to see what they'd find beneficial out of such a program?  They might give you better answers than anybody, since they're the intended recipients.

[Noname123]

Agreed with Celeste on different people having different goals.  At my last (desk-bound) gig, our department sort of made our own "wellness support group" where we would talk about achievements and what we were currently working on, but everybody had a different agenda (eating better, successfully quitting smoking, starting a weightlifting routine, losing weight, etc.).  Just the concept that the other people around you were also working on their health goals was in and of itself a major motivator.

 

Question: Have you tried polling some of your coworkers to see what they'd find beneficial out of such a program?  They might give you better answers than anybody, since they're the intended recipients.

 

 

I love all of these great ideas and am working towards building something functional and flexible cross country. I can poll the HR group to see what they believe their employees would find beneficial however polling the entire company of 5k+ employees would be something that's not realistic for me at this point. So I'll keep building away and see what locations would like to participate!