Wellness Effective Practices
As part of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance’s commitment to an open-source approach to information sharing on the implementation steps for stakeholder management, this begins an ongoing series featuring specific chapters in the EEA’s two books, Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap 5th edition, by Bruce Bolger, Allan Schweyer, and Richard Kern, and Enterprise Engagement for CEOs, by Bruce Bolger.Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap is the guidebook for any organization seeking to implement the “Social” of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) management, increasingly known as Stakeholder Capitalism. It is designed for any management in charge of making the shift toward a stakeholder approach to management and value creation.
The book is included with the EEA PurposePoint Academy membership library or can be purchased online.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 25, Wellness. Select chapters will be featured in the coming weeks and throughout the year. Paula Godar and Amy Kramer contributed to this chapter. Click here for the complete chapter.
Wellness goes beyond the obvious benefits of lowering healthcare claims, cutting lost time due to illness, or worse. Wellness strategies provide organizations a unique opportunity to help promote better health practices, prevent disease and better the lives of their employees – and that’s good for everyone.
The new approach to wellness is holistic: it considers the whole person – both their mental and physical well-being. It places emphasis and responsibility on individuals to take ownership of their health. Wellness becomes tied into your organization’s value systems and can influence outcomes at your organization and improve the quality of life for your people. Wellness programs provide a so-called “virtuous circle” because they’re good for people and for business.
According to a 2010 study by Harvard Business School professors Katherine Baicker, David Cutler and Zurui Song entitled Workplace Wellness Programs Can Generate Savings, properly designed wellness programs can yield healthcare cost savings of $3.27 for every dollar invested, as well as $2.37 in reduced absenteeism costs. The study also noted that in 2006 only 19% of companies with 500 or more workers offered wellness programs, while a 2008 survey of large manufacturing companies revealed 77% offered some kind of formal health and wellness program – and the percentage is likely even higher today. The most common interventions at the time of the HBS study included: 1) health risk assessments, in which each person’s condition is tracked; 2) providing self- help information; and 3) offering health-related incentives.
It’s a process.
Promoting wellness isn’t simply a “do-this, get-that” proposition. It’s a process that addresses all of the issues required for humans to change behavior. Based on a study conducted by Maritz Research in 2011, wellness programs should focus on four specific drivers that contribute to good health:
- Physical activity
- Mental well-being
- Prevention
- Nutrition
Start by understanding that improving health is one of the greatest challenges most individuals face. Improvement comes incrementally, one human being at a time, and any progress is worthy of celebration. Effective wellness strategies utilize engagement elements, connecting goals with strategies that shape people’s behavior and choice in “owning” wellness and participating in the activities aimed at health promotion and
Click here for the complete chapter.
The book is included with the EEA PurposePoint Academy membership library or can be purchased online.
How RRN and Brand Media Coalition: Your Partner in Success in Incentives, Rewards, and Recognition
Published by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance at TheEEA.org
- The only weekly news, how-to and resource publication of record for the Incentive, Rewards, and Recognition field.
- The only marketing agency focusing specifically on the IRR and broader engagement marketplace.
The Industry’s Only Combined Media Platform and Marketing Agency to Help You Expand Your Business 
- All the industry news, research, announcements, and how-to articles read by over 20,000 end-users in sales, marketing, and human resources; incentive, recognition, loyalty and promotional companies, as well as marketing and human resources agencies, seeking to enhance performance through effectively designed incentive programs.
- Unparalleled business development services for engagement, incentive and incentive travel, recognition firms; brands, gift cards and master fulfillment companies, and technology firms, featuring ROI-based business development strategy design and ongoing digital and social media and e-newsletter communications to help marketers profit in the coming era of cookie-less marketing.
- Unique abilities for solution providers to sponsor authoritative, evergreen content directly related to what they sell through the EEA’s Effective Practices series on articles in our media platforms.
- EEA YouTube Channel with over three dozen how-to and insight videos and growing with nearly 100 expert guests.
- Access to new technologies from EEA preferred solution providers enabling brands to create their own points-based or transactional redemption site.
- Unparalleled expertise in program design, return on investment measurement, reporting, and prescriptive analytics.
