Workplace wellness programs are always a savvy business decision, but they can be complex to implement and sustain without proper systems and processes in place from the start. Time and resources must be invested to plan the program and form an engagement strategy.

Employees have many competing priorities. In addition to awareness of the wellness program’s offerings, employees require ease, clarity, and consistency to get the most out of it. So, how do you maintain ongoing interest in your investment? This article discusses how to promote your wellness program in the workplace for maximum employee engagement.

How to Promote Well-Being in the Workplace

In this post:

1. Needs & Interest Survey

2. Seamless Registration & Communications

3. Marketing Materials

4. Incentivize, Recognize, or Reward

5. Strive Workplace Wellness Solutions

Needs & Interest Survey

The primary function for any successful engagement strategy is to ask employees what their needs and interests are. Strive uses a complimentary survey to accomplish this for clients. Not only does deploying the survey develop awareness of the initiative, but employees get a glimpse into what’s possible.

Involving employees from the start reinforces the idea that the wellness program is for them and that their opinions are meaningful. This builds confidence and trust that employers have their workforce’s best interest in mind, which makes it easier to participate when the time comes. An employee needs and interests survey introduces the various elements of a wellness program to the population and indicates how to customize it just for them.

Learn more about 3 Corporate Wellness Initiatives to Support a Healthy Workforce.

Seamless Registration & Communications

Leveraging a wellness vendor with a technology platform is an excellent way to promote your wellness program in the workplace. It’s naturally a challenge to engage busy employees and any added inconvenience deters participation. The most difficult part of wellness is often not the class or event itself, but registering and showing up.

Efficiency is key. For example, Strive’s online portal allows registering for a class or event to be quick, user-friendly, and easily accessible. Liability waivers are electronically completed with the click of a button upon registration. From a stakeholder’s perspective, there’s no requirement to interface with internal systems or exchange sensitive data.

Registered participants receive timely, clear instructions and virtual links if applicable which encourages habit-building as expectations are developed. In the same confirmation message, employees can add classes or events they’ve signed up for to their calendars to avoid scheduling conflicting appointments and to have a tangible commitment to wellness.

Strive’s technology platform automatically sends participants reminders for upcoming classes or events, and notifies them of any changes to the schedule. Utilizing streamlined systems removes many administrative barriers holding employees back from engaging in wellness initiatives and saves internal program managers from sending out manual communications.

Program managers can also deploy quarterly feedback surveys to evolve the wellness program offerings and re-engage employees who may have ceased participating. These simple processes and communications organically promote the wellness program over time.

Marketing Materials

In addition to setting a foundation of employee interest and uncomplicated systems, marketing materials are integral to an ongoing engagement strategy. Examples of marketing materials include:

• Reference guide to logging in/registering/company code
• Promotional flyers
• Event/class calendars
• Monthly newsletters
• Healthy recipes
• Employee spotlights/testimonials

Strive assigns a program manager to every client that prepares marketing materials for them as part of our wraparound service delivery model. This is to further alleviate administrative burden for internal program implementers and to make wellness easy.

Incentivize, Recognize, or Reward

Another valuable aspect of Strive’s technology platform is its ability to collect engagement data. The assigned program manager provides a monthly analysis clients can use to promote the program by incentivizing, recognizing, or rewarding participants. For example, everyone who participates in eight classes in a month is entered into a drawing for a prize. Engagement data can also be used to score challenges or competitions, or to shout-out employee wellness leaders. Employee recognition is a great form of intrinsic motivation to encourage lasting behavior change.

Discover 5 Ways for Middle Management to Champion Wellness.

Strive Workplace Wellness Solutions

Strive wellness programs are designed for ongoing engagement from strategizing to implementation. Our team kicks off our partnership with a complimentary employee needs and interests survey to drive the framework of the program. Strive’s fully-burdened pricing model includes:

• Liability/registration technology platform
• Program manager for coordination/communications/programmatic recommendations
• Data collection & analysis

Book a discovery call to explore how Strive’s unique capabilities can assist with turnkey implementation and built-in promotion for your employee wellness program.