The chicken or the egg? This age-old question was never more relevant than when creating your employee wellness business plan. Ultimately, you need to address the who, what, where, when, why and how; but even these questions need to be addressed in the right order at the right time.
When conceiving an employee wellness business plan, employers must answer important questions to anticipate their immediate, short-term and long-term goals & objectives.
“Zero Year”
“Zero Year” represents the thought and planning that happens before the launch of a wellness program. Why does your organization need a wellness program? What behaviors do you want to encourage your workforce to adopt or change? Who will be included? Answers to these questions at the beginning will inform every following decision.
Focusing too intently on the implementation of wellness tactics at the beginning can distract from strategic goals and defining metrics. Once the strategic why, what and who are decided, then you can move on to the more tactical how, where and when.
These are the tangible aspects of your wellness program that will engage participants and drive the outcomes. This involves incentives, communications, portals, timing and more. Since the strategic thinking was done first, you can more easily determine which tactics will most effectively achieve those goals.
Building a 3-Dimensional Plan
A wellness program is not a single-year effort. In order to maintain success, those initial strategic metrics must be reviewed and the tactics reassess as needed. If participation, engagement and earned incentives are going down year over year, the program’s design and execution may be “one note.” This may be a sign that there are changes that need to be made and a return to zero year may be helpful.
Find more expert advice on how to reassess and improve the process of designing and evaluating your wellness plan in the webinar below, including defining success, keeping employees engaged and realizing the value on investment of your wellness program.
- Learn which questions are the most important during the creation and re-evaluation of your wellness program.
- Hear how to shift the paradigm about the reasons behind your wellness program strategies.
- Refocus what should be driving your choices and how to gather the information to make those decisions.
