One of the most challenging aspects of creating corporate wellness programs is that they must serve the needs of a diverse population while also reducing health care delivery costs for the employer. Use this step-by-step guide to create a corporate wellness program that is customized for your employee population, leaves room for special individual health challenges, and delivers real value in medical cost savings for your company.

Step 1: Evaluate your population and business costs

The first step in creating a customized wellness benefits package is understanding population demographics. On the face of it, this only offers a general overview of a typical group of employees, but understanding demographics is a vital step in determining primary health challenges and the best avenues for programming and delivery. Human resources officers can compile a demographics overview that acts as the cornerstone for building a wellness benefits program. When a population’s typical needs are evaluated within the context of a company’s medically connected business expenses, wellness program architects can then identify a high-level plan for building a survey to narrow programming choices even further.

Step 2: Survey the employee population

Engagement is often a wellness program key performance indicator (KPI). Engage employees by asking what health programming they need from the beginning. Deliver the survey questions on multiple channels to give every employee the opportunity to participate, and consider which channels were the most popular when developing wellness program delivery options. Keep surveys brief and leave room for comments or suggestions to help identify special situations and potential wellness program champions. 

Step 3: Create a central access point for wellness resources

Make it easy for employees to access wellness programs by creating a repository for all benefits package information and contacts. This step may be as simple as setting up an FAQ page on an intranet site or password-restricted HR benefits website, but that may require frequent updates that would stretch HR or IT staff resources. It may be easier to work with a wellness program delivery platform that offers a connected smartphone app, website, and communication options such as push notifications and newsletters to create multiple channels of communication. 

Step 4: Establish a timeline, KPIs for regular program assessment and adjustment

Successful wellness programs require scheduled, periodic assessments to determine levels of employee and dependent engagement, population health changes, and related health expenses for the business. Establish KPIs based on learnings from the initial discovery and planning stages and CDC resources and set monthly, quarterly, and annual evaluation checkpoints to determine which wellness programs and delivery options are working well. Adjust as needed.

Developing a toolkit that addresses a specific population’s wellness needs is a detailed process that requires a commitment to serving the best interests of the individual and the company. Make sure your company doesn’t miss a step by bringing in a wellness program consulting firm that specializes in designing programs that get results. For the last 25 years Aquila has been creating, managing, designing and implementing innovative health and wellness solutions for private and public organizations. Learn more about what Aquila can do for your employees by contacting us at info@aquilaltd.com.