Back in 2013, Belmont Health & Wealth set out on a strategy of bringing Wellness into the workplace. Starting with a team of three, we undertook this challenge as a way to focus on making our employees healthier. Over three years later, and the Wellness Committee of three has expanded to EIGHT! The below blog was originally published on November 25, 2013. I thought it would be a good time to look back on where we've come as a company.

Workplace Wellness 101

Tired of your health plan becoming more expensive each year? Tired of seeing your staff on sick leave and disability? Have you tried making your workplace more fun, engaging, and healthy? Of course you would love to do this! Who wouldn’t? At Belmont we are making the health of our employees our number one priority.

UPDATE: Three years later, and Belmont has continued to focus on the health and well-being of its employees and stressing the importance of workplace wellness. This focus has resulted on overall health improvements of staff, and a marked decrease in staff turnaround, as employees are more engaged in the company.

The Idea

In the summer, a wellness committee was formed, with the primary focus on making our workplace more engaging and getting staff to take ownership of their health. We didn’t feel we could talk the talk about wellness if we also weren’t walking the walk.

UPDATE: As previously mentioned, this Wellness Committee of 3 has grown to 8! The original committee of three was based solely out of the Dartmouth, NS office and we are happy to report that it has now included members of our Saint John office. The two offices have really pulled together to bring healthy initiatives to all.

The Beginning

Here are a few steps our committee followed to get started:

1. Analyzed our health claims
2. Surveyed staff on:
   1. Health concerns of interest
   2. Wellness Challenges
   3. Rewards
   4. Work Environment
   5. Stress
   6. Presented results to management and staff
   7. Brainstormed together ways to make the workplace better
   8. Organized low cost health challenges
   9. Invited practitioners in to speak on Wellness & Budgeting
   10. Committee meets every 8 weeks to go over programs

UPDATE: Some of the wellness initiatives that Belmont has focused on, and remained focused on are:

• Healthy Snack Fridays
• Annual $200.00 wellness credit
• Personal and group volunteer days
• Bi-monthly Fitness Challenges
• Continuing Education program
• Company Enrollment in "Health Connected"
• Voluntary participants in Psychological Health & Safety Standard-Case Study Project
• Increase in team-building activities and staff events

Additionally, in 2016 we sent out the original survey to staff again and there was a marked decrease in staff stress levels and more positive perceptions of work and the workplace, which was great to see!

What We’ve Learned

Our most important recommendation is a workplace wellness champion. You need someone who lives and breathes wellness and brings life to the program. As your program grows the number of influencers (champions) will grow.

UPDATE: We have absolutely seen this happen within our company.

Wellness programming in most cases is the start of a culture shift. This is one of the cases where peer pressure is a good thing!! For example, if the majority of your staff is bringing healthy lunches, it is only a matter of time where staff members who are eating out or eating unhealthy will begin to follow suit or face peer scrutiny.

UPDATE: We have seen this happen as well! Staff talks more about healthy food choices and helps each other.

Contact our Wellness Ambassador at Belmont for more information regarding creating an employee survey and healthy challenges, and be sure to stay tuned for our future blogs, featuring our healthy challenge of the month! Go Belmont! Go Health!

CONCLUSION: Workplace Wellness really DOES work!

 

Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixabay

Source Url: http://gobelmont.ca/workplace-wellness-101-revisit/