Are you thinking of starting a wellbeing program at your company? You’re not alone. More and more businesses realize that healthy employees are happy employees. More importantly, happy/healthy employees are better for business. If we learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that employee wellbeing is critical to the health, success, and performance of any company. That’s why I created this guide for how to start your corporate wellbeing program, in 5 steps. While each of these steps entail some heavy lifting, the ROI of these changes are profound and worth the investment. In other words, contracting a fresh fruit service for the office is nice, but that won’t solve your corporate wellbeing issues. Let’s look at some things that will, though.
Step 1: Identify your company needs
Before you do anything else, you need to know what your company actually needs. It’s easy to read the blogs, talk to the consultants about what’s trending, and contract a wellbeing service, but there is more to it than that. As I mentioned in my last article about corporate program flops, it’s critical to understand what your team wants and needs. Here are some ways to get started:
Look at the numbers
When starting a corporate wellbeing program, look a the data first. Depending on the size of your company, you may need to involve HR for support. Otherwise, front-line managers are a great place to obtain initial feedback. Things to consider include:
- How often are people calling in sick?
- How much are you spending on healthcare?
- How stressed are your employees?
Some things your company may not be tracking. In these cases, try asking employees directly. Make sure to keep everything private and follow all the rules about personal information. This is a great opportunity to reinforce or break trust, so don’t get lazy here.
Set clear goals
Once you know what’s going on, you can begin crafting goals. Here’s where you want to set clear goals or define specific outcomes. Saying “we want healthier employees,” isn’t helpful or useful. Have a clear outcome in mind. In other words, be specific and leverage something like the SMART format for goal-setting, or another model you prefer. For example:
– Reduce sick days by 10% in the next year
– Lower our healthcare costs by 5% in two years, as evidenced by our annual health insurance provider report
– We want 75% of our employees to say they feel less stressed at work within 6 months, based on our quarterly Glint survey
These are good goals because the measure of success is clear and it is time bound, so you have a very clear outcome, along with a timeline.
Make your wellbeing program culturally relevant
Your wellbeing program should make sense for your company. In other words, it needs to be “culturally relevant. If your company is all about innovation, your wellbeing program should be innovative, too. If your company values teamwork, make sure your wellbeing program includes team activities. It should align with the values of the company.
Step 2: Choose the right wellbeing activities
The hardest part is done. Identifying what you want to achieve is often the most difficult part of creating a new wellbeing program. Now that you know what you want to achieve, it’s time to figure out how to get there. Here are some ideas for starting your corporate wellbeing program:
Physical health
Physical health is incredibly important and even moreso for the corporate desk ranger, since we usually have a pretty sedentary existence. Therefore, physical health is a popular offering for many companies. Consider the following options:
– Virtual or in-person fitness classes
– Step challenges – Extra points if the company springs for a branded FitBit or similar device
– Ergonomic home office setups
Mental health
If the pandemic did anything for us, it was to expose the limitations of corporate and government support for mental health needs. In addition, it elucidated for us what we really need, and it’s not office snacks, although, those are nice. There is a huge gap and as we emerged from the Pandemic with a mental health crisis, this is even more important that before. Here are a few ways the market is offering mental health support as part of their wellbeing programs.
– Online meditation or mindfulness sessions
– Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
– Mental health days
– 1×1 and group coaching for employees
– In-house coach
Nutrition
You may not think nutrition belongs in a corporate wellbeing program, but think again. If we are asking employees to work almost a 1/3 of their lives with a company, the least they can do is help them live better lives. There are low-life ways to help employees improve their nutrition, which in turn creates better life outcomes. Think of things like:
– Virtual cooking classes
– Nutrition counseling via telemedicine
– Healthy meal delivery services for remote workers
Social wellbeing
This is often overlooked but especially for remote workers, social wellbeing is an important consideration when starting a corporate wellbeing program. I can hear it already – it’s so hard to include remote employees in team building activities. If we learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that it actually isn’t that hard. It takes a bit more creativity, but it will pay off with higher employee engagement. You could offer:
– Virtual team-building activities
– Online volunteering opportunities
– Social events (both virtual and in-person)
Remember, you don’t have to implement everything at once. In fact, it’s better to start with incremental change to see how they are received by employees. You will always have to strike a balance because nobody liked “forced fun,” and not everything will appeal to everyone, so look for majority adoption – not complete adoption. You can always add more later.
Step 3: Put your plan into action
Okay, you’ve got your goals and your activities. All the heavy lifting is done and now it’s time for the fun part. It’s time to put things into action and start that corporate wellbeing program. Here’s how to get started.
Start small
The best way to start your corporate wellbeing program is to start small. You don’t need to change everything overnight. In fact, trying to implement everything at once is likely going to end in failure. Instead, select one or two things to start with. Perhaps, begin with offering virtual yoga classes and access to a meditation app. See how people like it and go from there. If that doesn’t work, try gym memberships and/or a monthly “wellbeing” budget so remote employees can take advantage as well. This allows employees to sample everything from Tae Kwan Doe to rollerskating lessons.
Get leaders on board
This sounds obvious, but it’s critical and I cannot tell you how many programs I have seen fail because there is no leadership buy-in. Your wellbeing program has a better chance of success if the senior and executive leadership teams are into it. Show them how it can help the company and make sure they cheerlead the efforts. Back it all up with data, wherever possible. For example, nearly two-thirds of HR leaders saw at least $2 in return for every $1 spent on wellbeing programs, based on a Wellhub analysis conducted in 2024.
Tell everyone about it
From the board room to the broom closet, make sure all your employees know about the wellbeing program. Send emails, use your company’s communication platforms, and discuss it in meetings. The more people know, the more likely they are to join in – especially if the leadership team is involved.
Make it easy
OK, this may seem obvious, but it bears repeating. It must be simple. The easier it is for people to take part, the more likely they are to do it. If you’re offering virtual fitness classes, make sure they’re at convenient times and easy to access. If you’re providing a meditation app, make sure it’s easy to download and use. Remove as much friction whenever and wherever possible.
Keep it fun
No one wants to feel like wellbeing is just another chore. Not to mention that, it’s not good for your actual wellbeing when it becomes mandatory. That is the fastest way to kill adoption. Make it enjoyable. Have contests, give out prizes, celebrate successes, and give people a reason to engage.
Step 4: Evaluate for success
OK, so you started your wellbeing program, but that’s not where it stops. Now you need to see how it’s going and do the care and feeding. Here are a few ways to evaluate success:
Ask your employees
The fastest way between two points is a direct line. You can do formal things like online and email surveys. You can also add casual conversation with employees in meetings to see if things are working, what’s good, and what are the dogs in a program. For your survey, you can ask questions like:
– Are you taking part in the wellbeing activities?
– Do you feel healthier/less stressed?
– What do you like about the program?
– Thinking about the program, what would you change?
– What activities would you like to see added or removed?
Look at the numbers again
Remember those numbers you looked at in the beginning? Check them again. Are sick days going down? Are healthcare costs dropping? Look to see what has changed, if anything. If you aren’t seeing any movement after 3-6 months, it may be time to change tactics.
Make changes if you need to
If something’s not working, change it. This is why starting small is important, so you don’t find yourself in too deep with things that aren’t working. Maybe people aren’t using the meditation app because it’s not user-friendly, or maybe your team doesn’t value meditation. Try a different app or offer guided meditation sessions instead. Maybe swap out meditation for a fitness app. There are lots of ways to change things, so refer back to your employee surveys, conversations, and feedback before committing to your next steps.
Step 5: Maintain the momentum
Starting a good corporate wellbeing program isn’t a one-time thing. It’s something that becomes part of your company culture and it should be woven into the fabric of your organization. Here are some ways to keep it fresh, and keep it going:
Don’t stop talking about it
In order to become part of the culture, it needs to be part of regular conversation. It needs to have a steady drum beat. Don’t let people forget about the wellbeing program. Keep sending out reminders, updates, surveys, and enhancements.
Celebrate successes
It’s easy to take this for granted, but celebrating success is important. Just because you believe something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t also need to be said. People enjoy sharing successes. For example, if you have a team weight class and someone has a new PR, celebrate it, as permission allows. Perhaps a team ran a marathon together. Or, maybe another group published a corporate cookbook based on what they learned in their corporate cooking classes. Did the company’s stress levels go down? Celebrate all of these wins. It’ll encourage people to keep going and remind people what’s available.
Keep it fresh
Don’t let your program get boring and dusty. Try new activities, bring in new speakers, and offer new challenges. Keep things interesting so people have a reason to take advantage of it. That doesn’t mean change for the sake of change, but rather, don’t wait for that paisley couch come in style again before you update your program.
Lead by example
This goes back to leadership buy-in. If company leaders are taking part in the wellbeing program, others are more likely to join in, too. I will also add a secret networking hack. Joining a team activity is a great way to interact and get access to leaders you may not otherwise have regular interactions with. This will help you build rapport with senior leaders who could later become mentors and sponsors, so don’t underestimate the power of comraderie.
Bringing it all together
There may only be 5 steps, but starting a company wellbeing program takes work. Having said that, this juice is worth the squeeze. Healthy, happy employees are good for business. They’re more productive, they take fewer sick days, and they stick around longer.
Every company is different and that’s OK. What works for one might not work for another, but don’t give up. The key is to know your company, set clear goals, and be willing to adjust as you go along. It’s a great way to experiment and get to know your teams better. If you’re ready to start your own corporate wellbeing program, let’s chat. Not ready yet? That’s OK. You can get more tips on wellbeing programs on the Wellspiration blog, or follow me for more personal stories on Substack.
Thanks for reading to the end and since you’re here, I have a free gift for you. You can download my free guide to the “20 Hidden Culprits Stealing Your Energy.” Can’t wait to talk to you next time!
Resources
- Willis Towers Watson. (2021). 2021 Employee Experience Survey.
- Kuoppala, Jaana MD, PhD; Lamminpää, Anne MD, PhD; Husman, Päivi MSocSc. Work Health Promotion, Job Well-Being, and Sickness Absences—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 50(11):p 1216-1227, November 2008. | DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0b013e31818dbf92
- Wellhub. (2024). 2024 Return on Wellbeing Report. https://assets-cdn.gympass.com/docs/Lead-Magnets/US/ROW24/US_ROW_REPORT_167eed42d9.pdf