Organizations nationwide are seeking solutions to help their employees manage stress, improve their mental health, and feel empowered to make ‌lasting lifestyle changes. Innovative offerings such as corporate wellness coaching allow organizations to nurture their most valuable asset — their people — with personalized support tailored to each individual’s needs and aspirations. Let’s explore how corporate wellness coaching not only inspires employees to make meaningful changes but also strengthens the organizational culture for vitality, productivity, and fulfillment to flourish.

Health and Wellness Coaching in the Workplace

In this post:

1. What is Wellness Coaching?

2. Benefits of Holistic Wellness Coaching as a Corporate Wellness Offering

a. Health and Wellness Coaching in Action

3. Best Practices for Implementing Corporate Wellness Coaching

4. Strive Virtual Wellness Coaching Programs

What is Wellness Coaching?

Wellness coaching is a collaborative process between a coach and a client that focuses on enhancing the client’s well-being and quality of life. Using various techniques such as active listening, asking/answering impactful questions, providing guidance, educating, and offering accountability, wellness coaches help clients set realistic and achievable goals, break them down into manageable steps, and problem-solve along the way.

Board-certified health and wellness coaches are professional, knowledgeable, proactive, empathetic, dedicated, and often driven by a personal passion and area of expertise. They form connections with each client by understanding where they are now, where they want to be, and the challenges they face in getting there. Corporate wellness coaches assist employees with the following aspects of well-being, including but not limited to:

• Chronic disease management, insulin resistance, prediabetes, preventive health, cardiac rehab, bariatrics
• Weight loss, muscle building, toning, fitness planning, injury prevention
• Functional nutrition, emotional eating, plant-based eating, mindful eating
• Hormonal balance, menopause support, hormone/liver/gut health
• Habit formation, mindset transformation
• Stress management, mindfulness, positive lifestyle choices, living purposefully
• Pre/post partum exercise & nutrition
• Fragmented sleep, insomnia

Depending on the client’s needs and preferences, a wellness coaching session can include personal training, exercise and nutrition planning, health education, meditation, strategy, or simply discussion. Corporate health and wellness coaching aims to guide and support employees in taking responsibility for their well-being and self-directed behavior change to achieve a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Benefits of Holistic Wellness Coaching as a Corporate Wellness Offering

Holistic health transcends the traditional approach of focusing on physical fitness, instead recognizing that well-being encompasses physical, mental, and emotional dimensions. While there is a time and place for group-based wellness initiatives, one of the key benefits of corporate wellness coaching lies in its personalized, customized approach.

Coaches work closely with employees to understand their individual needs, goals, and challenges, and develop tailored, sustainable strategies that align with their lifestyle and values. Some client examples would be:

• I want to feel stronger and more energetic
• I want a healthier relationship with food
• I’m trying to maintain my weight by focusing on nutrition, but I have a road trip/vacation coming up
• I want to enjoy snacks and drinks during football season without consuming too many extra calories
• I need exercise modifications while still moving the scale
• I want to rebuild muscle after a significant weight loss
• I want to build resilience to approach each day with greater optimism
• I want to learn more about prediabetes management

When employees have access to individualized holistic wellness coaching, they receive the comprehensive support, expertise, and accountability they need for healthy habit-building and long-term behavior change. This results in more positive mindsets, improved energy, and the confidence employees need to thrive in their personal and professional lives.

Corporate wellness coaching programs create a climate where employees feel cared for, valued, and empowered to perform at their best. Whether it’s managing chronic conditions, reducing stress, improving nutrition, or increasing physical activity, health and wellness coaching leads to better overall health, reduced healthcare costs, and a population more equipped to cope with daily stressors.

Implementing high-impact wellness initiatives such as wellness coaching demonstrates an organization’s commitment to employee well-being, building a culture of trust, collaboration, and satisfaction that enhances retention and recruitment efforts.

Health and Wellness Coaching in Action

One of Strive’s most highly engaged wellness offerings, one-on-one virtual wellness coaching programs attract employees with little effort ‌or internal administration from your teams. The personalized, collaborative, and private experience neutralizes the need for extrinsic incentives, and the virtual space is flexible and convenient for busy employees. Participant feedback following the conclusion of our first few programs revealed just how effective corporate wellness coaching is.

Sentiments expressed by our clients:

• “Being a middle-aged woman, nothing was helping me lose weight. However, with my coach’s training and nutritional guidance, my scale has finally moved. I weigh less, lost inches, and feel healthier.”
• “My coach has empowered me to develop a more positive mindset towards food, myself, and overall healthier habits. Her encouragement and insightful advice have helped me overcome challenges and build resilience, enabling me to approach each day with greater clarity and optimism.”
• “I feel stronger, more energetic, and more confident in my ability to lead a balanced and active lifestyle.”
• “On a particularly tough day, my coach was able to adjust my session from fitness and nutrition to healing and meditation exercises to help with my stress.”
• “I love that my coach didn’t only focus on food/weight, but also self-love. Every meeting I learned something new and I’m forever grateful that she created such a safe space for me.”

Each program ran for a duration of three months, with each participant receiving six, 30-min sessions with their wellness coach. The number of participants varied for each organization based on their size and budget, and clients gravitated toward a cadence of two 3-month programs annually.

Best Practices for Implementing Corporate Wellness Coaching

With any wellness program or initiative, it’s imperative to begin with clear objectives and goals. Why are we doing this, and what are the desired outcomes? What will we use to measure results? The answers to these questions guide the framework of the program and provide visibility into areas of success and improvement as it progresses.

In Virtual Wellness Coaching Programs, participant feedback is an excellent tool for analysis and informs whether the defined goals were achieved or are on track (i.e. reducing healthcare costs, improving employee engagement and satisfaction, building a culture of wellness). Participant feedback is extremely beneficial as it provides valuable insight into the effectiveness of the initiative (great for sharing with stakeholders), informs which coaches perform the best, and provides an opportunity for employees to reflect on their experience and solidify what they’ve learned. It’s important that the vendor you work with makes efforts to solicit feedback during and after the program to support ongoing organizational goals.

While corporate wellness coaching is highly engaging by nature, it’s beneficial to partner with a vendor with engagement processes in place to announce the upcoming program, provide kickoff materials, and ‌be available for questions, feedback, and support throughout. A proactive strategy helps fill all the seats budgeted for, allowing for high-impact results for employees and the organization as a whole.

Strive Virtual Wellness Coaching Programs

Strive’s Virtual Wellness Coaching Programs are streamlined for easy implementation and minimal internal administration from your teams. Each program is customizable to your group, with the ability to adjust the number of sessions each participant receives, the longevity of the program, and the number of participants allowed to enroll.

Our board-certified health and wellness coaches are experienced and specialize in a wide variety of health and wellness topics such as fitness, nutrition, chronic disease prevention/management, and weight loss. Coaches utilize our virtual platform to ensure convenient and flexible scheduling, knowing that employees are often preoccupied during normal working hours, and adapting to set a realistic meeting cadence.

Strive’s Virtual Wellness Coaching Programs have been extremely well received by employees nationwide, with many participants asking to extend or bring back the program. The individualized approach lays the foundation for employees to learn, plan, and habitualize healthy behaviors, so when they’re presented with wellness opportunities like health talks, fitness classes, or healthy cooking demos, they’re more inclined to recognize the benefits and participate.

Book a discovery call with us to customize a corporate wellness coaching program for your organization.