There’s an overwhelming number of different corporate wellness programs available for your business, and all of them change depending on your company size, your budget and your employees — and the last of those three is by far the most important.
Read more: Wellness 101: What business leaders need to know
To help you get a handle on what you should include, we’ve put together our five top corporate wellness ideas your employees expect from your program.
Insurance
Insurance is consistently rated as one of the most important benefits that employees look for in their place of employment. As a result, they often come as part and parcel of a wellness program, regardless of whether you’re a large or a small business.
Health, life and trauma insurance are the most common, but you can find all kinds of different corporate insurance policies within a good wellness program. People care deeply about their health, and good insurance provides a safety net for when/if things go wrong.
Insurance is consistently rated as one of the most important benefits that employees look for in their place of employment.
Take us here at BRAVEday for example: We have health and income protection for our employees, which means the workers here and the executives can sleep easier knowing that everybody, including the worker’s families, are covered if something does go wrong. It makes good business sense too, of course: with health insurance, people can get back on their feet and into the office faster.
It’s not surprising, then, that many employers decide to go the extra mile and build on this foundation with a complete wellness offering: you’ll find that along with your group insurance package, you’ll also get a wellness program included. It’s a smart match, after all.
Mental health care
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that wellness just means physical health. People are more stressed, more worried and more aware of the impact that their work environment can have on their mental wellbeing than ever before. Employees are putting a greater emphasis on their employer’s willingness to protect their mental wellbeing as well as their physical.
Employees are putting a greater emphasis on their employer’s willingness to protect their mental wellbeing.
That’s why a significant number of wellness programs include a mental health component. This might be as far-reaching as the provision of a third-party mental health professional to something as simple as encouraging people to take more stress breaks during the working day.
One in six New Zealanders are diagnosed with some form of mental illness in their life time, and it’s the third most common cause of health loss for us too. Employers who take the time to include solutions to the most common issues of stress and work-related anxiety are providing something of distinct value to their workers. Make sure you include these provisions in your wellness program!
On-site wellness
Let’s say you’re having a busy day. Chances are, that won’t be a stretch of the imagination. Would you, right now, be willing to travel out to an activity somewhere, perhaps to a gym, in the middle of the working day? If so, great! If not, which is more likely, you’re in the exact same boat as your employees.
Having on-site exercise equipment or activities eliminates one of the biggest barriers to wellness participation: travel time.
Having on-site exercise equipment or activities eliminates one of the biggest barriers to wellness participation: travel time.
What’s more, it also reinforces the fact that the wellness program is an intrinsic part of the working day. It’s hard to grumble about wellness being a gimmick if there are literally a group of your workmates playing basketball outside the window, or a gaggle of managers using the stand-up desks in the corner.
Inclusion in the work culture
Here’s an irony about wellness programs at work: you actually need to tell people to stop working. You can have the best, most diverse, most interesting wellness program in the world, but if it isn’t included in your culture, then no one will use it. That’s just a fact.
By making wellness a baked-in part of your culture, you are telling your staff that yes, they are absolutely allowed to use the elliptical to take a break from the computer screen, and yes, they really can go to that mid-day interdepartmental sports game without managers thinking they don’t have enough work to do.
If it isn’t included in your culture, then no one will use it. That’s just a fact.
How is that done? There are a wide variety of methods to make wellness part of your culture, but the easiest way is to simply block off a specific period of each day, week or month in which people can ”do” wellness. A 10-minute daily stretch time, a seminar on healthy eating, the sports game mentioned above: a program alone is not enough. Your employees want to feel okay about using it too---otherwise you might as well not have implemented a program at all.
Be social
Why do employees use wellness programs? Often, we’ve found it’s because they want to lose weight, improve their general fitness or increase their energy levels. But never forget the social side of wellness.
Wellness program exercise regimes don’t have to be intense workouts at the gym, court or track. They can be more light-hearted sports matches or activities too, giving employees the chance to build great relationships and, perhaps most importantly of all, hasten the adoption of the program into the work culture.
Never forget the social side of wellness.
People want to lose weight or get fitter, but they also want to enjoy it alongside others as well. Make your wellness program social; you’ll find it far more effective as a way to improve employee health as well as your workplace culture.
To find out more about wellness programs and how they can help your business, read our free ebook available below.
