Why should you collaborate?

Active, ongoing partnerships and cooperative efforts multiply Corporate Health and Wellness Program resources in order to better serve Employees and their families.

How can you build collaboration into a Corporate Health and Wellness Program?

Get Ready…
• Brainstorm a list of every potential Wellness partner you can think of. Be innovative!
• Be a politician: introduce yourself to everyone BEFORE you need their help.
• Develop a plan to get Upper Management support from as high up the chain as possible. Ensure that to include specific ways that your Corporate Health and Wellness Program will impact force readiness.
• Determine how YOU can help your partners (not just what they can do for you).

• Be Steady…
• Solicit input from everyone that your Corporate Health and Wellness Program will affect. Make a special effort to talk to the workers closest to Corporate Health and Wellness Program implementation (those with “boots on the ground”).
• Your most frequently asked questions should be: “What would you suggest?” and “How do you think this would work best?”
• Identify someone who has done the same type of Corporate Health and Wellness Program before and ask their advice. (Hint: the Corporate Health and Wellness Program has a list of many Wellness POCs.)
• Plan NOW to show Corporate Health and Wellness Program effectiveness. Identify who may ALREADY BE COLLECTING information that will show the Corporate Health and Wellness Program is working.

Get Set…
• Step back and review your Corporate Health and Wellness Program from a potential partner’s point of view.
• Brainstorm questions your collaborators might have, and have the answers ready.
• Be ready to frame your “selling points” in terms that are important to each specific partner.
• Put the Corporate Health and Wellness Program benefits in language your collaborators will understand.
• Emphasize to potential partners how this Corporate Health and Wellness Program will provide benefit to them.

And Go…
• Build as many partnerships as you can BEFORE you implement a Corporate Health and Wellness Program.
• Make your partnerships a two-way street: always let your collaborators know what you can do for them – then follow-up and do what you say you would do.
• Maintain Upper Management support by providing a regular flow of information. Invite Upper Management participation in the Corporate Health and Wellness Program and special events whenever possible. (Hint: they make great judges if you have a contest.)
• Offer regular feedback to your collaborators.
• Don’t hog the spotlight: let your collaborators share in the visibility of the Corporate Health and Wellness Program.

Successful health education programs will incorporate adult learning theories and promote active participant involvement in all phases of program planning and implementation. Health education efforts should emphasize skill development and the adoption of health enhancing behaviors while being accessible to all staff members, their families and retirees. Methods of delivery may include; one on one instruction, group presentations, seminars, workshops, educational media lending library and health literature distribution. Program examples may include:

• Health Risk Assessments
• Personalized health prescriptions and behavior change assistance
• First aid and CPR training
• Nutrition education programs
• Stress Management Programs
• tobacco use cessation  programs
• Heart disease and cancer education
• Blood borne pathogens education programs
• Sexual assault prevention programs
• Prenatal care and Postnatal
• Safety education programs
• Self care programs
• Healthy back programs
• Family centered programs
• Supplies of literature and educational media available for employee loan

As a first step to beginning your Corporate Health and Wellness Program, we recommend that you have a designer draw up an attractive map of your corporate campus or vicinity. Plan out and test a few short walks of varying distances, and using a pedometer and watch, figure out how long each walk is in time and distance. Have a little fun with your walking Corporate Health and Wellness Program by equating each walk with a common office activity of the same duration, like a writing a one-page status report or filling out a common form. Post the map in the office and make sure people know about walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs by using your office communication channels – newsletters, announcements, corporation meetings. Keep it fun by building weight-loss teams, setting up races or organizing healthy picnics and athletic activities around the walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs route.

Here are some other walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs tips from Tom Weede, author of The Entrepreneur Diet: The On-the-Go Plan for Fitness, Weight Loss, and Healthy Living:

• Make sure to link the walking Corporate Health and Wellness Program to work objectives. Employees need to be reassured that these walks are part of their responsibility to be healthy and productive. They’re not personal errands that need to be compensated for by longer days at the office.
• Keep healthy snacks in the office.
• Reinforce the walking Corporate Health and Wellness Program message by regularly mentioning it during worker meetings
• Set up a health-related benefit that walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs participants can use for health-related expenses.

“Corporate Health and Wellness Programs” – what does that phrase mean to you? To many of us, it evokes an array of ambivalent thoughts — the health club membership we barely used, the nagging ankle injury from last year’s corporation picnic, the backaches, the bratwurst we had for lunch, the love handles and of course, the fad diets that failed us or that we failed. Usually, Corporate Health and Wellness Programs is a guilt trigger that causes us to feel remorse about our bodies and the health management we know we should be doing for them.

Unfortunately we live in a society where our survival is dependent on sitting at a desk, not hunting game, picking berries and sprinting away from wolves. We also live in such luxury, nutritionally, that we can gain weight steadily without being wealthy. Cardiovascular disease, obesity and poor dietary habits cause most of the heath issues that weigh down worker attendance and erode a company’s productivity.

Ironically the poorest societies in the world – the ones furthest from the conveniences of modern life – often boast the healthier, most physically hardy members. And as for the animal kingdom — don’t look there for commiseration. In the wild, it is extremely rare to find an animal that suffers from our kind of wellness issues.

Pharmaceutical dependency degrades Health and Wellness

It doesn’t help that U.S citizens are descending into a deadly love affair with drugs — and drug testing won’t help you with these drugs.

For example, Greg Critser’s book Generation RX details how U.S citizens spend about $180 billion dollars on Pharmaceuticals each year, with the estimated 2011 tally at a whopping $414 billion. The average number of Pharmaceuticals per United State citizens in 2004 stood at twelve.

Twelve! That means that your average worker is taking 14, 18, or even more than 20 medications in an attempt to improve their Health and Wellness.

Is this effective, though? Critser is not convinced that the drugs help U.S. health. In fact, he points out a bevy of negative consequences for America’s legal prescription medication addition, which include prescription medication interactions, liver damage, and the legions of people who now depend on drugs to deal with ordinary trials and stresses.

An business has the potential to improve Health

It’s not all bad news, though. Occupational Health Screenings and well-designed Corporate Health and Wellness Programs can help you fight the downward spiral for you and your workers. In fact, good Corporate Health and Wellness Programs – like a strong walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs initiative – can literally save lives and reduce the symptoms that cause workers to turn to drugs in the first place.

Corporate Health and Wellness Programs are as close to a grand slam proposition as you’ll find, according to most researchers and Corporate Health and Wellness Program experts.

But if you have skeptics in your organization who are questioning the time and expense of beginning an Corporate Health and Wellness Program, you may be wary too. Aren’t worker Corporate Health and Wellness Programs subject to the adage “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”?

Corporate Health and Wellness Programs Don’t Have To Be Expensive

Fortunately, worker Corporate Health and Wellness Programs don’t require a big investment. Like any other corporate project, mismanagement and “death by committee” can inflate the cost of Corporate Health and Wellness Programs, but it’s hard to spend too much time and money on them. After all, Corporate Health and Wellness Programs are mostly informational in nature. Flyers, e-mails, maps, and Corporate Health and Wellness Program Health and Wellness Fairs can only cost so much. There’s no expensive, specialized Corporate Health and Wellness Program machinery.

Corporate Health and Wellness Program statistics on successful programs are particularly persuasive. Unlike many cost-saving measures, Corporate Health and Wellness Programs actually add to worker satisfaction – but they also reduce Medical Insurance premiums and worker absenteeism.

What are some common Corporate Health and Wellness Programs?

Corporate Health and Wellness Programs run the gamut, depending on your workplace demographic, from physical activity for health patients to nutritional initiatives that encourage workers to replace unhealthy snack foods with healthy fare like dried fruit and shelled nuts.

Here are some examples of Corporate Health and Wellness Programs:

• ergonomic safety
• cardiovascular disease education and testing
• worker safety
• Health Risk Appraisals
• walking Corporate Health and Wellness Programs
• drug testing