10 Questions to Ask Before You Start a Wellness Program

Are you thinking about starting a wellness program for your company? If so, then start by asking yourself these 10 questions. The answers to these questions will help you figure out if this is the right time and right decision for your business. This blog post goes over what to ask before starting a start-wellness program and why it is important to do so!

It is hard to start an employee wellness program. It takes a lot of time and money to do it. But if you do, the results can change a lot for your company. What factors can help you predict which programs will thrive and which ones will fail? The answers to these questions can tell you.

10 Questions You May Ask Before You Start a Wellness Program

Employee Wellness Programs are essential for the holistic development of the employees. Here are the 10 questions that you are required to introspect before initiating  Employees Wellness Program:

1. Why do you want to start a wellness program?

You need to ask this question before starting a wellness program. About 85% of the time, employers say that they want to improve their employees’ health and lower healthcare costs because of employees.

Other employers want to do wellness. They know it is good for their employees. It is 15% of the time. They want to have a workplace that is fun and rewarding, where the employees are healthy and happy.

Some people might want to do wellness for different reasons. One might want to lose weight, while another just wants to feel better about themselves. They should do a different type of wellness program that matches their goal. If you want to improve employee health or reduce expenses, then you need to focus on helping employees have healthy lifestyles. This requires a comprehensive approach.

If you want people to work hard, then they need to have a good time too. Do things that are fun, not just healthy.

2. How will you know if your wellness efforts are successful?

There are other ways to ask this question. For example, you can ask:

• If you start a wellness program today, how will your worksite be different three years from now?
• How would we know if we were successful?
• What will you say when someone asks you about your success?
• What will you measure?

Before you start a wellness program, go to your boss and ask questions. If he or she can’t answer your questions then it’s not time for a wellness program.

If you can answer questions, use your answers to help you choose a vendor. The vendor can tell you how well your program is working – for example, if it is improving the health of employees or lowering their risks. It can also tell you how much money it will save on employee-related expenses. You need to measure the impact of your wellness program. That means you need to gather the right data at the beginning and across time.

3. What is the nature of your workforce?

It is important to have a different wellness program for people with jobs at different places. For example, if you are spread out over time zones or languages. It will be hard to do the same thing for all of your people.

If you work in a store, it is important to know that there may be a lot of changes. So watch out for this.

If you know that your employees won’t be working there in six months, it doesn’t make sense to put time and money into a wellness program. Some retail stores have employees in management positions. These managers do not change jobs very often.

Some worksites will offer a reduced wellness program to employees who are likely to leave but offer more comprehensive wellness benefits for full-time employees.

The same thing is true for worksites that have workers who only work there temporarily. In general, wellness programs are easier to start and administer when your employees can already use other workplace benefits.

4. Who will be offered your program?

Do you want to provide wellness for all of your employees, or just the people who are benefited? What about spouses and dependents?

If you provide health insurance for your employees, you are paying for the medical expenses of dependents. If you want to help reduce healthcare costs, then your wellness program should also include the people who are the significant others of your employees. After all, they are healthy because of you.

You should have lots of friends and family who support you to be healthy.

5. Do you have strong leadership support to start a wellness program?

This is a tough question to answer. Many workplaces try to do a wellness program with limited support from the top. It’s not bad, but it limits how effective the program can be.

Good leadership support means that the worksite wellness committee is good. They help with things like the wellness program. When you have a wellness committee, your employees feel like they own the program. The management is not trying to force anything on them.

Companies with strong leadership will have leaders who participate in the program. This way, they are very visible. They participate in campaigns, they participate in team challenges and they talk about the wellness program. They are involved in evaluating and reporting on the program. And they personally believe that a healthy lifestyle is important.

Even if a worksite does not have strong leadership in the beginning, there are steps you can take to improve the leadership.

Every company provides benefits to its employees. It is hard to remove benefits once you start. So make sure you want them before you start.

You need to have support from your company before you offer a benefit. You will need to commit to making the wellness program successful for a long time. Treat the decision just like any other decision that affects employees.

6. Do you want to go it alone or use professionals?

Senior leaders can decide whether or not your company will start a wellness program with employees. Senior leaders can also decide whether or not your company will hire a wellness vendor to come in and help. Do you want to build or buy a house? There are some good things about building your own home, but there are also some bad things.

7. Do you have a budget to start an employee wellness program?

In the typical program, the company will have to pay $150 per employee per year. There are so many different prices for the wellness program, but it is less than $150.

The cost of membership for a person is between $30 and $100 per year, depending on how many employees there are. Other wellness programs offer things that are too expensive without any benefits.

If your worksite is fully insured, you may be able to get some help for your wellness program. It is a good idea to ask a question. If you are self-insured, you can work with your third-party administrator and your healthcare consultants to tweak the design of your plan in a way that frees up money for wellness. Tell your insurance company that you are thinking about doing a program to get more healthy. Ask them for help about this.

Some places even offer free wellness programs for you to use. They are not as good as the ones that you would buy, but they can be used. Places like these might offer some wellness programs for free which can help with your program objectives.

If you want your employees to be healthier, and if you want to spend less money on them, you need a wellness program. This is a program that is proven to make people healthier.

8. Do you want wellness to be a company perk or a benefit?

Benefits like health, dental, vision, and life insurance are not your wages or salary. They are extra benefits you get in addition to your wages or salary. Benefits or perks for employees are good. Employers use them to find and keep workers. Leaders need to make long-term commitments and they make companies stronger. Perks are nice things that you can get. These perks are more of something to have than something to do. They are extras, so they can be taken away easily with little effort.

Perks are different than benefits. A perk might change while a benefit will stay the same. If people think of wellness programs as a benefit, then they will be more likely to use them. Moreover, you want a wellness program, but do not need to reach goals or produce positive outcomes, you can be happy.

If you do anything that benefits your health, then it is considered wellness. If you want wellness to be a benefit, make sure that you support the program for many years. Make sure that all of your employees take part in it and reward them for doing so.

9. Are you willing to change your worksite culture?

The reason why obesity and diabetes are at record levels is that we live in a culture that makes it hard to eat healthy food and exercise. This is especially true for workplaces.

Most people spend a lot of their time at work. The culture and environment of work can affect people’s health. Unhealthy food, not enough time to be active, and stress all make it hard for you to be healthy.

For worksites who want to help their employees, they need to improve the culture and environment. This way, people will be happier.

Without a change in culture at work, it is hard for people to stay healthy. If your company does not want to help make changes in the worksite, you may not be able to improve your health.

10. Can you live with the consequences if you don’t begin an employee wellness program?

If you are reading this blog, then you are thinking about starting a wellness program. This means that we have to ask some questions:

• Why do you want to start a wellness program?
• Do you have a lot of sick employees?
• Have you noticed that your employees are using lots of medicine and going to the doctor a lot?
• Do your competitors offer a wellness program to their employees?
• Are there a lot of people trying to hire the best employees?

Wellness programs used to only be available at the biggest companies, but today you can get one at your place of work. Obesity rates and healthcare costs will go up in the future. Employee health and expenses are a problem now. They will be worse in the future.

A Word from Mantra Care

When you start a wellness program that is done for the right reasons, it can affect both the employees and their families. For example, if you are an employer with 100 people on your team, investing $4 per person each year can add up to more than $400,000 over 10 years. In addition to the financial impact, these programs also make people feel better by offering them things like mental health counseling and fitness facilities.

Do you want to keep your employees happy, healthy, and productive? Join our employee assistance program and get a healthier workplace.