In this article, we will discuss how to get people to come to your wellness programs and wellness program participation. One of the best ways is by getting more people on your team. You can do that by making a recruitment plan and figuring out what has been shown to work in the past when it comes to health and wellness in the participants.
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What Should Wellness Program Participation Look Like?
Without employees to participate in wellness programs, it is impossible for these programs to be successful. The way you can tell if a program is successful is by how many people participate in the program.
This success can help justify the cost and work involved in having a wellness program available to your employees. Wellness program participation is the first step before people will be able to adopt healthy behaviors.
This behavior change model has been around for a long time and it does a good job of explaining the process we all take when we change. We start with people going through the pre-contemplation stage, followed by contemplation, preparation, action, and finally maintenance.
It is an interesting way for us to understand what it means to have a wellness program. People who are in the action stage of change are doing something to try and improve their health.
People who are trying to change their behavior might do things like take a health risk appraisal, get a new job, or talk to someone about their feelings. This helps them feel better.
Wellness Participation Incentives
You should give wellness swag to people. You can also give them benefits for coming to your wellness program. This blog is about the difference between two things. Ask yourself this question: Why do people who exercise regularly do it? Some of you already have a healthy lifestyle which includes physical activity on most days. Why do you do this?
People who exercise do so because they like how it makes them feel. People who exercise regularly are motivated by the way it makes them feel.
They like the way exercise can manage their work-related stress. They like the way exercise makes their bodies look and feel. People like being active because they can lose weight. They also enjoy the competition. These are both things that people do because it makes them feel good inside.
Intrinsic rewards such as these take a while to be experienced and appreciated. You can exercise for the first time and you won’t get any benefits from it. This is because you need to do it a lot before you get rewards. All of these things happen when we have long-term habits, like exercising every day.
Sometimes they can change over time. For example, people might compete in sports when they are younger. When they get older, it is more important to be healthy and have a good body. This is called an intrinsic motivator. It is different than extrinsic motivators (which are things that make you do something).
Effective Marketing
Many years in college were spent learning about or teaching behavior change models, processes, and strategies. But when you are not in school, it is different. Outside of the Ivory Tower (a place in the United States where colleges are), people’s behavior is influenced by marketing.
Marketing is important for your employees. If you want them to do something, then you need marketing. Marketing has three parts: 1) use words that make the people want to act, 2) offer something of value, and 3) tell the person what they should do.
Compelling Copy
Messages and information we communicate with our employees will make a big difference as to whether or not they participate. You won’t have good wellness program participation unless you are helping people solve a problem. These problems are not your problems, your worksite’s problems, or your CEO’s problems. These are personal health and wellness programs.
Some problems that people want to solve are:
- Want to lose weight, be more fit, or improve my sleep.
- Would like to avoid chronic diseases.
- Don’t want to develop diabetes.
- Need help to be active and spending time with my grandkids.
Offer Something of Value
If you participate in our wellness program, then you will get something out of it. This includes the small and benefits-based incentives we are planning. But it also includes the benefits people get when they adopt and maintain a new healthy behavior.
When employees sign up for the wellness program, they need to know what’s in it for them. Healthier lifestyles, lower weight, better-tasting food, less medication. They might also want hope, friendship, or just happiness.
It’s important to tell people why they should be healthy. That way, they will like it and like you. People give you time and attention, so you better give them something in return! If you offer something of value to the person, they will do what you want. If you give them something good, they will help. It’s like a contract.
Include a Call to Action
This is the easiest part of effective marketing. We often forget it, but we should tell our employees what to do. For example, you can tell them that they need to register today or sign up now for this program. Let them know what they will get if they take these actions and then remind them again later.
Now tell them exactly what you want them to do. These three steps seem pretty simplistic and it is sometimes easy to dismiss them as too elementary. But after 10 years of experimenting with hundreds of thousands of employees, WellSteps considers these three steps to be our marketing commandments.
Every communication we make with employees is driven by this process. To help you with more examples and more ideas we made an infographic that you can use and share with others the provide even more detail about how to implement effective marketing steps in your wellness activities.
Put It All Together
Below is one of the posters that we use for our Stress-Free campaign. It shows these three steps as they actually appear in our marketing materials. The compelling copy includes the question, “Stress-free?” Followed by “Feel less stressed now.” That’s the compelling copy.
The value proposition is “learn simple ways to reduce the stress in your life. When you finish, you could win a $50 gift card!” The last step is an invitation to register at WellSteps.com/welcome.
Every behavior change campaign has the same formula. We have a website for this, emails, and text messages too. This is why so many people are interested in what we do.
Communication Channels
Today, there are many things competing for our attention. Your wellness program needs to be shared in various ways and at different times if it is going to be successful. Once you have your marketing materials ready, make sure that you share them with the people who matter most—your employees.
To sell a home, you will need a lot of different things. You might want to use email, printed materials, newsletters, your website, posters on the ground outdoors and inside buildings where people go every day. Meetings with other people are also good. If you work at home or in an office with lots of other people, you can practice wellness programs.
It is hard to get people to come to your wellness program, but it is easier when their spouses and significant others are in attendance. When they see how much fun it is, they will want to come too.
Wellness Committees
Every successful employee wellness program has a wellness committee composed of a representative sample of employees. Improved participation will happen if your employees feel like they have a say and control of the program. This makes them more likely to participate.
You need to have some control over your wellness program but also take into account what the employees are suggesting. Some of the ideas in this article might not be very good. But if we put some of them in our yearly wellness calendar and they get a lot of mileage.
Leadership Support
One of the most important things for a wellness program is to have strong leadership support. This means that both your art and science skills must be strong. We strongly recommend that you read the blog entitled the complete guide to getting strong leadership support. Do the steps on this blog to have a successful wellness program with maximum employee engagement. If you follow these guidelines, then you will get leadership support for your wellness efforts. Many professionals say that one of the most important aspects of a successful wellness program is strong leadership support.
What Wellness Program Participation Is Supposed to Look Like?
Do your wellness program and people will be healthier. You can help them by following these steps:
- Get information to the employees,
- Encourage participation in the program,
- Provide resources and support for safe activities,
- Be positive about healthy behaviors,
- Give feedback on how they’re doing (and praise when they do something good).
If you want to have a wellness program that helps people stay healthy, you will need to follow these steps. This can help you reduce healthcare costs and other expenses like absenteeism and presenting.
A Word From Mantra Care
The first step to getting maximum wellness program participation is setting the right expectations. Your employees should not expect that they will be able to completely stop drinking or smoking, for example. Rather, you want them to understand why it’s important to limit alcohol consumption and nicotine intake over time so their bodies can heal themselves naturally. If your employees are willing but unsure how best to get started with quitting unhealthy habits like these, consider asking your HR team about available resources in-office or online.
Do you want to keep your employees happy, healthy, and productive? Join our employee assistance program and get a healthier workplace.
