Corporate Health and Wellness Programs start and end with individual health. Individuals, after all, are able to make decisions about maintaining and / or improving their health and wellbeing. Employee Corporate Health and Wellness Programs must therefore provide the tools and resources needed to assist and motivate individuals to actively participate in the program.

Individual health is only one component of creating worker Corporate Health and Wellness Programs. Below you’ll find some things to assist you in your efforts to develop a healthy atmosphere for you and your coworkers.

Encouraging Your Employer to Start an Corporate Health and Wellness Program

This is the first step in creating a Corporate Health and Wellness Program. In recent times more and more companies are creating to see the value of promoting and supporting the health of their workers. Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit organization, has released a sourcebook called “Healthy Workforce 2010″ (http://www.wellnessproposals.com/pdfs/tool_kits/healthy_workforce_2010.pdf). This sourcebook is an excellent resource containing information on:

•         Benefits of Corporate Health and Wellness Programs

•         Suggestions on where to start

•         Tools like surveys and evaluation forms

These resources are for both companies and workers to lead the development and assess the effectiveness of their new Corporate Health and Wellness Program. Provide it to your employer as a place to start or read it yourself and present your ideas.

Taking Part in Corporate Health and Wellness Programs

Once you have an worker Corporate Health and Wellness Program established, participating fully in all aspects of the program is important. Many of us know that we need to more actively engage in Corporate Health and Wellness Programs to improve our health, yet have difficulty finding and taking the time to do so. These simple steps can jumpstart your participation in an worker Corporate Health and Wellness Program:

•         Review the offerings that interest you and that you need for health  improvement.

•         Schedule time to go to the seminar or service.

•         Actively following through with recommendations from the program.

•         Make a decision now to improve your health. You will feel better today and tomorrow and the next day for actively moving towards wellness.

Here is a list of potential Corporate Health and Wellness Programs that might be available to you at work:

•         ergonomic evaluations and training classes

•         lactation rooms and classes

•         prenatal education program

•         quiet rooms for relaxation

•         stress management programs

•         fitness facilities

•         chair massage

•         healthy eating education

•         worksite primary medical care services

•         child care facility or resources and referral service

•         smoking cessation programs parenting classes

•         elder care resource and referral service

•         cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose screening programs

•         flu vaccination

•         weight management programs

•         medical care consumerism programs

•         work/life programs

•         wellness coach / health coach programs

•         onsite mammography

More information to follow in my next posting about Employee Corporate Health and Wellness Programs