Look below to find 10 Tips For Promoting Organizational Health, Does Your Organization Measure Up? and Critical Questions To Ask.

Path to Wellness, our employee wellness e-zine also has lots of tips on developing your own company wellness program.  Check It Out and Sign Up Now!

"40% of Canadians reported that they did not really know enough ways to maintain and improve their mental health." Canadian Mental Health Survey 1997

10 Tips For Promoting Organizational Health

1. Encourage employee fitness through lunchtime walking, fitness memberships and incentive programs.

2. Promote deskercises to reduce strain from keyboarding, sitting, and lack of fresh air and as a way to increase energy and focus.

3. Reduce caffeine and encourage higher water consumption.  Water can help fight the afternoon 'lull' and boost the immune system.

4. Get them outside but not for a smoke-break.  Light regulates energy.

5. Stress the importance of healthy snacks and lunches to increase focus, creativity and energy.

6. Promote teambuilding through meetings, projects, training and activities.  Support from co-workers reduces stress and gives perspective.  Return to work initiatives should include providing support and understanding to those who have been away.

7. Encourage effective communication through openess, sharing, and respect even on the 'tough' issues, performance reviews and brainstorming.

8. Provide training workshops on stress-related and health-related issues.  Employees who have a variety of coping 'tools' are better able to achieve success and balance.

9. Increase access to information through reading materials, wellness centers, and Employee Assistance Programs.

10. Model positive behaviour.  Wellness and balance must be seen as an organizational priority and must be 'lived' and lead by those in management.

Does your organization measures up?

Take the following brief questionnaire.

1.    Is there an overall health policy in place stating your organization’s intent to protect and promote the health of all employees by providing as healthy an environment as possible?

2.    Do you train your people in healthy workplace principles and methods?

3.    Is a strategic approach in place to developing and sustaining a healthy workplace and is it based on employee needs?

4.    Do you have a formal assessment process to determine employee needs, attitudes and preferences in regard to healthy workplace programs?

5.    Are the workplace health assessment results analyzed and are improvement goals set out in a Healthy Workplace Plan?

6.    Does the Healthy Workplace Plan lead to improvement of all the key elements of a healthy workplace - the Physical Environment, Health Practices and the Social Environment & Personal Resources?

7.    Do you measure employee satisfaction levels in order to improve the workplace?

8.    Do you identify the contributions of your people and provide appropriate recognition and rewards?

9.    Are there good levels and trends in employee satisfaction and morale?

10.   Do your leaders demonstrate, through their comments and action, a commitment to the management of a healthy workplace?

Critical Questions To Ask

Consider the following five questions when beginning your wellness programming:

1. What will happen or continue to happen and how much will it cost if we do not invest in wellness?  - Benchmark
   
2. What programs do we currently have and are they working?
   
3. What programs would meet more of the needs of our employees? Health Assessment – symptoms and sources
   
4. What outcomes are we hoping for or why are we willing to invest in wellness? From Benchmarks can calculate the costs
   
5. What can we realistically afford to invest? Buy In

Permission granted to reproduce as long as source is noted.
Beverly Beuermann-King - www.WorkSmartLiveSmart.com 

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