There are so many different types of workplace wellness programs, it can be overwhelming deciding what works for your business. At the end of your wellness initiative, the goal is for your employees to think more about their health and make healthier decisions. When you put your employees’ needs at the center of your wellness program, it makes narrowing down your options easier. Here are a few questions to help you figure out what will work best for your company and your employees.

What was the last wellness initiative and how did it go?

If you did something in the past that employees seemed to enjoy, got good feedback or had a high participation rate, then you might want to do something similar. Of course, you don’t want to do the exact same thing but re-use elements that got the best feedback. For example, if you had an “awards ceremony” after a month-long fitness challenge that people seemed to really enjoy, do an awards ceremony again but do a different wellness challenge. If your last wellness program didn’t do as well as you hoped, it’s a great opportunity to totally change it up this year!

It’s important to ask for feedback at the end of your program or at the end of the year if you run wellness programs for the entire year. You can use that feedback to track outcomes and also to help plan your next employee wellness program and make it better than the last.

How big is the company?

The size of your company directly relates to your employees’ experience in your corporate wellness program. If your company is enterprise-sized, it might be better to break down your programming to a departmental level. For example, if you want to host a step challenge it could be tempting to have a large step count goal and push the same messaging to everyone to add their steps to the collective goal. However, this can seem impersonal and not be very motivating on an individual level. If instead you had departments or smaller teams with their own goals or even competing against each other, that has the potential to increase participation rates.

If you have a smaller company such as a new start-up, you can make your programming even more specific towards your employees. For example, if you know a good number of your employees enjoy cycling in their free time you can have a bike-to-work week as part of your wellness initiative. You can even offer free bike rentals one day to encourage others who don’t usually cycle to participate. This shared activity also creates something to talk about between co-workers, helping build company culture. With a smaller company, you have the option of making your wellness programs even more personal which ultimately will make your employees enjoy the program and participate more.

Are there going to be prizes?

A great way to incentivize your employees to participate is to have prizes or some type of reward for their participation. Be sure to think about what your employees really want – what will really motivate them to participate? Fitness products as prizes could be great to encourage healthier lifestyles (think Fitbits, gym memberships, weights or yoga mats). But you could also use workplace incentives. For example, maybe everyone who checks into 4 workout classes in a month gets a pass to wear a more casual type outfit on a non-Friday. Or the top stepper in your step challenge gets to take a half-day.

Big prizes for top employees aren’t the only way to motivate, however. You can do micro-rewards or a point-based system so that everyone feels like they have a chance to earn something. For example, for every 10,000 steps completed in a day, your employees can earn 5 points and once they reach 150 points they can redeem their points for a reward.

Employee recognition also is a great motivator. Even just announcing top participants in your weekly meetings can make employees feel good about themselves and want to participate more.

How can we make living a healthy lifestyle easier for our employees?

It’s important to think of how you can make living a healthy life an easier choice for your employees. This can require some creativity when brainstorming what areas of wellness you want to incorporate into your workplace. Some ideas are: having healthy snack options in the break room, making sure your catered meetings have healthy meal options, not having meetings run past 4:30 to ensure adequate home hours, having meditation rooms available or having more social events to improve company culture and social wellbeing. 

When thinking of ideas start with an area of wellness you want to focus on – mental, physical, social – and go from there.

Not sure where to start with your company’s wellness initiative? Follow this simple plan to start formulating some ideas and get the ball rolling!

Before you start any wellness program, it is important to figure out what your goals are. An easy way to do this is to survey your employees’ current wellness. In this survey keep it anonymous and try to keep it short and simple. You can ask questions about their exercise, eating, sleep and stress management habits. You may initially think you need a wellness program focused on physical health, but after surveying realize your employees are looking for more mental health and stress reduction resources.

After you get your survey responses you can create a plan with clearer goals in mind. What area of wellness do you want to focus on? Although effective wellness initiatives incorporate physical, mental and social elements to them, you should still keep in mind what areas your employees need the most help with. (Learn about the different types of wellness in our blog series here).

You should establish your concrete goals during this stage. Do you want a 10% decrease in self-reported employee stress levels? Do you want an increase in time spent on physical activities for your employees? Make sure your goals are clear, so you know what to measure at the end of the wellness initiative.

This is an important step that many companies skip when setting up their wellness program. A wellness committee helps keep the morale up and motivates their co-workers to take part in the wellness program. If you are a smaller business or startup, nominating one person to be the “wellness champion” is another option. This committee or person can also help determine how the program is laid out and implemented. Along with a committee, it’s helpful to have upper management on board with the wellness program.

Now it is time to define what elements you want to include in your program. Fitness challenges are a great thing to incorporate into your program. Not only is the goal to improve physical health, but a lot of times they also bring about more social connection within and between your teams. There are many different types of challenges you can do from step and distance challenges to a weekly workout challenge or an hours of sleep challenge. Go back to your survey results and what your goals and objectives are as you define what your challenge will look like. 

Some other elements could be actual classes on wellness topics. These could be workout classes, breathing and meditation sessions or lessons on nutrition. The sessions could be in person, pre-recorded or done virtually. It really depends on your company and your employees.

There are a variety of other things you can include such as free health screenings, walking groups, an upgrade in workplace food options or employee gym memberships. This again really depends on your business and your budget.

It’s important to get the word out to employees. Make sure the instructions for how to participate are easy to understand and be sure to emphasize any rewards you have established for participation or challenge winners. Wellness committee members should talk about the wellness program to their different teams and get people excited. Launching with a party or even a fitness challenge is a great way to start off with a bang.

After your program or wellness challenge has come to an end, be sure to send out a follow-up survey. This can take the same form as the initial survey. Again, it should be anonymous and ask about different wellness habits. You can then see how the answers compare to the initial survey to evaluate if you hit your goals established during the planning stages.