Posts from — October 2010

When staffing your wellness program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness staff or contract with wellness professionals from outside your company.

Small and medium size worksites do not ordinarily have a wellness professional on staff. When your worksite is in this category, you’ll need to contract with providers outside your business.

Large businesses have several options. They can hire a staff solely for the health promotion program, they can contract with outside wellness providers, or they can use a combination of internal staff and outside providers.

When picking  a provider some key questions in the areas of staff, wellness program structure, process, and effectiveness need to be addressed. Each of these key questions is discussed in the following sections.

Wellness Corporation Staff

Health specialists become wellness specialists when they are trained in the full range of wellness activities. Wellness specialists are generalists who come from a broad variety of backgrounds and schooling.

They could be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But also to their primary training, they know something about all wellness topics, including use of tobacco, stress, exercise, and nutrition.

They also know how to engage and support individuals  in making and sustaining health improvements and have good individuals  skills.

Generally, wellness professionals at workplaces fall into three broad categories, wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and wellness instructors.

o  Health Promotion screeners introduce workforce to the health promotion program, take health measurements, collect health-related information, provide initial counseling, and help workforce define for themselves what they need and want in a health promotion program.

o  Health Promotion counselors work with personnel after the screening to help them develop and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.

o  Wellness instructors teach classes and minigroups on different health topics.

A wellness program in a small company may be staffed by a single staff person who fills all three roles. Bigger worksites will use different people  to fill these roles.

When choosing  staff or choosing  among wellness businesses, ask the following questions -

o  Do prospective employees have a range of health backgrounds that’ll provide appropriate professionalise in the topics to be addressed?

o  Have prospective staff members functioned well as wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and/or wellness instructors?

o  Will this staff include individuals  from the ethnic and racial backgrounds found in your worker population?

o  Is each staff member comfortable with the range of backgrounds found in your staff member population, and able to communicate effectively with the various social and educational levels of your employees?

o  Do workers have a warm, but specialist, counseling style when interacting with employees?

An annual plan for the major wellness programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great wellness committee task. Frequently an activity and wellness theme per month is offered to employees.

A lot of companies select to follow a National Health Observances calendar which offers advantages.  The materials created by these various national health companies are very credible.  The materials are ordinarily high quality and available free or at a nominal cost.

The corporation benefits from additional publicity that occurs in various media throughout the community related to the national observance. for planning suggestions you could want to utilize the HOPE Publications Health Promotion Resource Creating Guide available for free at this Web site.

A HRA  is sometimes used combined with a medical screening.  An HRA is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

An HRA seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious illness and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.

An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the in a illness. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments could be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Individuals with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious medical problems over time.

Drawing attention to their health risks can help clients reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary disease and subsequent premature death.

The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (like smoking, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (like cholesterol, blood pressure (BP) levels, height, and weight).

For accuracy, it’s vital to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol.  The Health Risk Assessment (HRA) also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Types of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.

The impact of a health risk assessment is much greater when it’s given in-person, with immediate feedback to the client. This also provides an opportunity to invite the client’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.

A health age may be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age may indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) programs are one the most prolific types of wellness activities utilized by companies. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

Among the big benefits of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a business and could be utilized as an analysis tool.

Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.

The most common screening performed in health promotion programs is heart health assessment.

The screening can include a written heart health test, blood pressure measurement, cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol test, glucose (blood sugar), weight, educational materials specific to diet, nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, smoking, and weight.

The health specialist conducting the screening then provides a consultation and helps set goals with the participant.

The backbone of wellness programming at the worksite is medical screening. It’s the first major activity a organization ought to do when first starting a wellness program.

Medical screening is usually used paired with the administration of a HRA .

The most effective way to screen is to utilize a health specialist trained in wellness screening techniques and counseling to privately and individually assess participants.

This wellness specialist takes a brief health history and measures blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol. With computerized cholesterol desktop analyzers, results are acquired in about four minutes.

Immediate feedback, consultation, and educational materials are provided. for those identified at-risk, follow-up appointments may be scheduled at this time.  The whole process takes about twenty minutes per individual.

The screening also provides an immediate opportunity to register participants in various wellness programs based on their interests and identified health risks.

Medical testing can be done on an annual basis and used as a means of monitoring health risks within the workplace.

A medical screening program needs to provide multiple opportunities for participation.  The service ought to be provided for all the various shifts of a business.  The screening program ought to be conducted in highly visible areas so the process can be observed.

Reluctant workforce often like to be able to see what the wellness program is about before they participate. When wellness screeners aren’t busy, they should perform outreach going to areas where workforce gather and attempt to recruit workforce.

When well-planned and promoted, health testing can attract participation rates of 60 percent to 100 percent. These high participation rates have a positive impact on senior level management producing support for further health promotion programming.

Objectives are broad-based statements about what the wellness program is expected to do.  The goal of the wellness program is to enhance the health of the individual and the company. Objectives like mission statements provide direction in a wellness program.

Objectives are specific and provide a means of measurement of the wellness program to determine effectiveness. There are two kinds of objectives, process and outcome.

Process goals state the activities that need to occur to achieve a desired outcome.

Examples of process goals are -

o  Number of participants screened

o  Number of participants in and completing health promotion programs

o  Satisfaction of wellness program participants

o  Number of participants who were medically referred and saw their doctor

o  Number of promotional activities

o  Number of participants seen in follow-up

Example of outcome objectives are -

o  Number of participants who improved fitness level

o  Number of participants who decreased cholesterol level

o  Number of participants who lost weight, body fat

o  Number of participants who quit use of tobacco

o  Number of participants with high blood pressure who lowered their blood pressure

o  Number of participants whose initial level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk who are no longer at-risk

o  Number of participants with risk factors who saw their doctor and are being treated for high blood pressure (BP) or cholesterol years later

Wellness committees are important in that they develop a sense of ownership in the wellness program, and facilitate various tasks involved in wellness programming at the workplace.

The committee must be composed of a cross-section of workforce representing various occupations, levels, and subgroups with the company.

A common mistake is filling the committee with the most health/fitness-conscious people  in the business. Don’t rely solely on volunteers to fill a committee. Be certain that your committee members have enough power in the business to run an effective wellness program.

The wellness committee is made up of workforce from the workplace. It oversees the health promotion program and helps carry it out.

The committee ought to meet about once a month to review the previous month’s activities and plan future ones. When the health promotion program is just starting, the committee may meet weekly until things get going.

Committee members do not carry out medical procedures, counsel patrons, or handle confidential medical information. Wellness experts perform these tasks.

In general, the committee’s duties fall into three areas –  planning, promoting, and helping to run health promotion programs.

Creating the health promotion programs can include -

o  Locating space for activities

o  Creating and organizing worksite-wide events such as contests

o  Evaluating reports prepared by the health promotion program staff and making recommendations

Marketing the health promotion program can include -

o  Recruiting personnel to participate in screening and health promotion programs

o  Encouraging employees to take part in follow-up counseling

o  Organizing promotional strategies using newsletters, signs, bulletin boards, computers, and other media available within the workplace

Helping to run the wellness program can include -

o  Establishing up equipment for various activities

o  Assisting to conduct worksite-wide activities

o  Monitoring all activities and investigating  the performance of the expert staff

o  Acting as wellness mentors to fellow staff

The size of the wellness committee are going to be dependent on the size of the business. Select members by asking day management to nominate or appoint personnel.

Make an announcement through flyers, memos, and meetings to recruit potential members. Explain the purpose of the committee, duties and responsibilities, and the time commitment.

Recognize your wellness committee volunteers. Allow them to take part in wellness programs at a decreased cost. Hold appreciation breakfasts/lunches/dinners.

Print names of committee members on company communications about the wellness program.

Purchase special T-shirts, caps, and buttons for them. Write letters to supervisors saying that you appreciate the member’s service. Develop awards certificates for members.

The following can be used as a guide for committee size -

o  Less than 300 employees   2 to 4

o  300 to 1,000 employees   4 to 6

o  1,000 employees or more   6 to 12

Effective health promotion programs recognize the importance of building a supportive cultural environment.  The worksite culture includes shared values/heartfelt beliefs about what’s important. It includes social standards of expected and accepted behavior called “cultural norms.”

It includes peer support from family, friends, and peers. This support can help one adopt healthful lifestyles. Tools are available to audit a business.

The long-term success of any wellness program is dependent on the corporate culture.

Some healthful culture signs in a organization are -

o  Employees communicate openly

o  Leaders support diversity and opinion

o  Employees have fun

o  Policies support wellness

o  Workers are encouraged to grow

o  Workers work together as a team

o  Employees’ skills and talents are matched to their jobs.

o  Flexible work schedules are available

o  Corporations consider workforce as their most valuable asset

Effective health promotion programs attempt to develop healthful worksite climates. A healthful worksite climate is one which encourages teamwork, cooperation, and empowerment of the individual.

Individuals  have a sense of community, a shared vision, and a positive outlook. Policies promote and support wellness efforts within the worksite.

o  Effective wellness programs identify ways that business policies and organizational traditions encourage wellness.

o  Effective wellness programs work at the group and organizational level to build support for healthy lifestyle choices.

o  Effective health promotion programs set clear target goals and goals for the health betterment of the workplace.

An initial health testing can include a recent survey of employees’ interests as part of the assessment. Successful wellness programs are designed to meet the needs and interests of the staff.

The information you need to get from a recent survey depends on the scope of your wellness program. A sample survey may be obtained in the HOPE Publications Web site.

When you plan to adapt this sample survey or create your own survey, keep the following hints in mind -

o  Ask mostly closed-choice questions, in particular if you will be sending the survey to a big number of staff. Closed-choice questions provide specific options and are easy to tabulate. You might want to use a computer for data entry and analysis.

o  Invite comments, suggestions and recommendations, or ask open-ended questions after the survey. Open-ended items are more difficult to summarize.

o  Include a brief explanatory cover letter with the survey with the signature of the corporation president. Make sure to include a statement about confidentiality and anonymity.

o  Ask a group of representative staff to review the survey before it is distributed. Find out if the questions will be understood by staff and will not be objected to.

o  Include demographic information at the starting or end of the survey. Consider various ways that you could analyze the responses by demographic characteristics (gender, age, shift, site, department, etc.).

When considering who ought to get the survey, a simple rule is when you have under 500 workers, everybody ought to receive one.  The public relations benefit of everybody receiving a recent survey could be significant.

Over 500 personnel, a sample of the work population will suffice. A sample saves on costs and time. You could want to consider consulting with a statistician to determine an appropriate sample size for your workplace.

Needs surveys are confidential and anonymous; they do not request information that may identify a person.

Getting support from upper-level management is crucial to the success of the health promotion program.

One way to do this is to survey managers (see forms) and conduct interviews with decision-makers in the company. You can use the surveys here or make up your own.

When you decide to do your own, keep the survey short. It should not take more than ten minutes to complete.

The interview process can also serve to educating management. Provide concise fact sheets on the advantages of health promotion programs for management.

When surveys and interviews are completed, tally the surveys and write brief summaries of the interviews. Provide these reports to management.

Once completed present a brief executive summary to management. Highlight several intriguing findings that may be used immediately to make decisions about the health promotion program.

Utilize charts and graphs to make your points. Pull together a detailed report for wellness committee members itemizing each response. Give a short article about the survey in the company newsletter.

The higher the response the more exact and reliable the results. A minimum response of 40% to 50% is acceptable.