Q1 2020 Texas CEO Magazine

[CULTURE]
IS YOUR
EMPLOYEE
WELLNESS PROGRAM
WORKING?
Employee wellness isn’t just about fitness. Use these six tips to create a holistic wellness program that
improves your bottom line, no matter how large or small your firm is.
Gary Oden, PhD
Over thirty years ago, I took a headfirst dive into the world
of employee wellness programs. I was working on my PhD in
Applied Exercise Physiology at Texas A&M when the director
of our lab came to me with a question: Was I interested in
working on an evaluation of the wellness program at the
big Westinghouse plant down the road in College Station?
This plant, employing over 2,000 people to create radar
components for fighter planes, had recently launched the
program, with a beautiful new fitness center as its centerpiece.
“Sure,” I said.
Thus began my eight-year involvement with Westinghouse,
measuring the profitability and effectiveness of their employee
wellness program and consulting them on improvements.
And thus began a career that would later see me consulting
on several other large-scale employee wellness programs,
from Norwegian shipbuilders to the State of Texas.
If you lead an organization of more than 200 employees,
it’s likely you already have some sort of employee wellness
program (around 90 percent of US businesses above this
size offer one). But all wellness programs are not created
equal, not by a long shot. You may also lead a smaller
company and wonder how you can get one started without
blowing your budget. Either way, it’s worth assessing how
your organization supports employee wellness. Especially
today, a smart, well-run wellness program can be a major
asset, improving everything from your healthcare spend to
employee engagement to your appeal to talented job seekers.
Here are my top six tips for optimizing your employee
wellness program, gathered over three decades of
work evaluating and consulting on them.
1. The CEO must be on board.
For any wellness program to be successful, the CEO has got to
take an interest. This is obvious from a financial standpoint.
The day will come when decisions must be made about
whether certain resources are allocated toward the program
or not. If the CEO is unwilling to devote any resources
(even if it’s just employee time), the program will fail.
But, more importantly, the CEO and the executive team are
also critical in setting an example when it comes to prioritizing
wellness and participating in the program. For example,
when I first came to Sam Houston State University, where
I still teach, the health and kinesiology center was seldom
used by faculty. Across the whole campus, there were maybe
half a dozen people who you’d see in the faculty locker room
consistently. But then we got a new president. He was a big
advocate of fitness, and he visited the health center no fewer
than three days a week. Suddenly, the faculty locker room
was bustling with people working out and being active. The
president’s participation was contagious, and faculty wanted
him to see that they shared his enthusiasm for fitness.
The same will be true at your business. If the CEO and
executive team don’t have buy-in and involvement in
the program, if they never talk about it and aren’t seen
participating themselves, it is likely to come across like an
HR afterthought. And you will see limited benefit from it.
80 Texas CEO Magazine Q1 2020