There’s a lot of interest in health promotion in the workplace in Ireland at the moment which is fantastic to see. Companies of all sizes are waking up to the fact that healthy and happy staff have a positive impact on productivity, engagement, morale, and culture. Promoting the wellbeing of employees can reduce absenteeism, increase attraction and retention figures, reduce health care costs and improve camaraderie and team spirit. Why then are so many Irish businesses reluctant to start a wellness programme? For those that have started something, how come so many have been unsuccessful?

Developing and implementing a wellness programme can be straightforward if a structured process is followed. I’ve found in Ireland that wellness is not prioritised and therefore many programmes are at a disadvantage even before they have begun. Usually a member of the HR team is tasked with organising the healthy activities in Irish companies and often this is on top of their day job. Not having enough time, if any, to dedicate to wellness and the fact they’ve received no formal training in this area are complaints I hear on a regular basis from HR professionals in Ireland.

If you are considering a wellness programme at your workplace, my first piece of advice is to formally allocate time to the person or team tasked with this activity.

8 Steps

When I’m working with clients to develop a wellness programme or to update an existing programme, I follow an 8-step process. Rather than re-invent the wheel, my process is based on academic research and a tried and trusted formula that the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) have developed and improved over the last 30 years. Combining these sources with my own research and experiences in the Irish marketplace I’ve structured the steps as follows:

1 Committed Management

If you don’t have senior leaders driving the idea and supporting your initiatives with their communication, participation and financial backing then it’s highly likely that your initiatives will not be successful. In an ideal world the CEO is already a wellness advocate and needs little convincing as to the benefits of supporting employee health. In reality it’s more likely that you’ll need to research and prepare a business case to get the management team on board. Senior management leading by example in this area is crucial so do not skip this step.

2 Create a Team of Wellness Champions

Depending on the size of the organisation it can be extremely difficult for the wellness coordinator to do everything on their own. Establishing a network of champions spread throughout the business in different functions, floors or locations (similar to fire marshals) can support the coordinator with the preparation, promotion, communication, engagement, participation and evaluation of wellness activities and more. Formal time should be allocated to these roles which should be voluntary and include a range of seniority levels if possible.

3 Listen to the Population

One of the most important steps is to listen to your employees. It stands to reason that activities you create and organise will have a greater chance of engagement and success if they are based on the wants and needs of employees. A wellness survey and small focus groups can provide the baseline from which all of your workplace wellness activities and programmes can be developed.

4 Develop an Operating Plan

Can you align your wellness programme with organisational objectives? Capturing the organisational objectives for wellness activities and documenting the details will serve to focus the energy and investment in your wellness programme. The wellness operating plan should reflect the values, vision and purpose of an organisation.

5 Choose the Interventions

Based on the accumulated data in the four previous steps, you can now choose the activities based off this information that will form the basis of your wellness programme and schedule these activities across the duration of your programme. Every initiative you choose should be as inclusive as possible. The target is always the majority, not the minority.

6 Strategic Communication

Strategic communications are an essential building block for those seeking to create and maintain best practice programmes. Once the interventions have been chosen, it’s important to market them appropriately to the workforce. Communications help employees answer straightforward yet important questions such as ‘‘how does the programme work?”, ‘‘where can I sign up?’’ and ‘‘what’s in it for me?’’. In short, communication is crucial to secure engagement, and engagement is key to the success of the programme. Who the communication comes from should also be considered.

7 Cultivate a Supportive Environment

Do the company policies, procedures and practices support a healthy work environment? Everything from flexible working policies to the built environment to unwritten norms play a role in shaping the company culture. What foundations can you put in place to foster a supportive work environment for employee wellness?

8 Evaluate, Celebrate and Iterate

A workplace wellness programme is a living, breathing entity. As your organisation changes over time so too must your wellness offering. Measure as much as you can, track your progress over time, celebrate your successes (very important) and iterate and improve your programme by incorporating the lessons learned from all of your failures and successes.

Conclusion

The biggest issue I see with workplace wellness in Ireland is that those tasked with creating programmes (who are very well intentioned I might add) bypass the earlier stages and jump straight in at step number five to choose the interventions.

What’s wrong with that exactly? Jumping straight in and choosing the initiatives at the outset without going through the initial steps is a pure shot in the dark and it does not give your wellness programme the best chance of engaging with employees and succeeding. In fact, it may already be set up to fail. Every organisation is different and will encounter challenges along the way however if you follow the above steps you will significantly increase the likelihood of your wellness programme being successful.

The best companies in the world look after their people because they know that they will, over time, look after their business. Don’t get left behind!

Yours in health,

Brian

If you enjoyed this article then my training course with Dr. Sarah-Jane Cullinane could be for you as it’s based on the 8 steps above. Click here to apply for the Programme Description and find out when the next course is scheduled.

References

Karen Kent, MPH, Ron Z. Goetzel, PhD, Enid C. Roemer, PhD, Aishwarya Prasad, MPH, MBBS, and Naomi Freundlich, MA. Promoting Healthy Workplaces by Building Cultures of Health and Applying Strategic Communications. J Occup Environ Med. 2016;58:114–122.

Wellness Council of America: The 7 Benchmarks

About the author:

Brian Crooke is a wellness consultant, speaker and trainer specialising in the auditing, development and delivery of workplace wellness programmes (such as Corporation Transformation) for Irish companies through his Office Worker Health business. He is also the founder of the Workplace Wellness Ireland community. In his spare time he is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT project

Email: brian@officeworkerhealth.com