Corporate Wellness Programs

Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Corporate Wellness Plan will help you get and sustain Upper Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Corporate Wellness Program.

The bottom line in Corporate Wellness Programs answer two primary questions:
• How will participant health be enhanced?
• What’s in it for Upper Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Corporate Wellness Plan impacts readiness.
• Think like Upper Management: what Corporate Wellness Plan outcomes will be important from a Upper Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask participants how they think a particular Corporate Wellness Plan enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Corporate Wellness Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Corporate Wellness Plan first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or starting any part of the Corporate Wellness Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be enhanced? What’s in it for Upper Management?

Step 2: Establish concrete Corporate Wellness Plan outcomes.
• Establish up front what the Corporate Wellness Plan is working towards.
o By way of example: will participants lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Establish any processes or procedures that will be enhanced.
o By way of example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Corporate Wellness Plan goals were met.
• Look at what data is really needed to show Corporate Wellness Plan effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important data points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when deciding what data to collect – consider how easily follow-up data can be collected when a Corporate Wellness Plan ends. Getting follow-up data is often a challenge.
• Only collect data for health behaviors or indicators that the Corporate Wellness Plan actually affected.
o By way of example: if the main Corporate Wellness Plan goal is that participants will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Corporate Wellness Plan outcome (unless the Corporate Wellness Plan specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Corporate Wellness Plan cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Corporate Wellness Plan elements must be included to move participants towards the Corporate Wellness Plan goals.
• The concrete Corporate Wellness Plan outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Corporate Wellness Plan on track. All Corporate Wellness Plan elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and starting Corporate Wellness Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Corporate Wellness Programs.