How To Use Internal Communications To Promote Employee Wellness Programs

Crafting an engaging campaign to drive employee participation in wellness initiatives

When workplace wellness programs are successful, businesses reduce health risks and minimize healthcare costs. Additionally, according to this employee wellness program case study, when employees are healthy, it improves employee morale, commitment, productivity, and safety outcomes.

Your communications and HR teams are often overloaded during open enrollment, but the best health and benefits messaging continues beyond the open enrollment period and throughout the year. The key to active employee participation is an effective communications campaign—where organized teams develop promotional campaigns to support company wellness programs.

Successful Employee Wellness Programs

Before your communications team writes a single message, a thoughtful wellness program needs to exist. According to the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA), there are seven benchmarks to implementing a successful employee wellness program. According to WELCOA, successful implementation starts with a committed, aligned leadership team and requires buy-in from all stakeholders. Since HR and communications are integral stakeholders, a collaborative approach to employee wellness requires a strategic communications plan.
 
Here are five internal communications tactics to include in your wellness plan and campaigns.
 

1. Create awareness and community. Before event sign-ups and opt-in deadlines, develop a catchphrase and use internal communications tools like newsletters and signage to create awareness about this year’s wellness programs. Designate a digital hub for your wellness community using an off-the-shelf tool or intranet. Several weeks before any deadlines, post 101-level information and send introductory emails that link to the community pages. Start with the standard must-know information such as who, what, where, when, and why. Consider creating an infographic with the key steps and desired outcomes to help employees visualize the program. In all communications, make it easy for employees to add events and deadlines into their calendars.

 

2. Send thoughtful reminders. When you create an email campaign, pre-program general reminders like ‘mid-point’ and ‘morning of’ reminders. For example, let’s say you organize a monthly employee walk or run. Send appropriate reminders one week before and one day before. Or, if you decide to publish a workplace wellness newsletter, build grassroots support and increase subscription numbers by giving employees ample time to submit content; routinely ask and remind employees to contribute healthy recipes and fitness opportunities.

3. Segment your audience based on participation or interest. If you have the tools to gauge interest and behavior, you can segment your audience into highly active advocates, participants, and non-participants. For example, let’s say you send an email about a ‘100,000-Step Challenge.’ Employees who participate receive additional information, often using stories about the advocate group, whereas non-participants should not receive these, or at least have the ability to opt out or unsubscribe. When an employee opts out, respect their time and attention by removing them from the campaign list. Segmented messaging leads to higher employee engagement and less distraction.

4. Highlight program success. You can build excitement and positive peer pressure within your company by incentivizing participation in various wellness initiatives. To keep morale up—and comply with legislation like HIPAA or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act—make sure you incentivize participation rather than ‘being healthy.’ “Some employees could be working hard to engage in healthy behaviors but have a long ways to go until they receive a healthy score on their wellness evaluations,” writes Swayze and Burke. Another approach is to promote overall program success or to create friendly, competitive challenges between groups. Providing participation feedback and data to your audience is a great way to heighten interest, stoke the fire of healthy competition, and build future participation.  “This month, the company logged 754,842 steps, with the HR group leading the pack at 326,710. Help us reach our goal of 1,000,000 steps a month!”

5. Ask for feedback… listen, and act on it! Effective communication campaigns rely heavily on employee feedback. Provide employees with the opportunity to offer their thoughts about the program: What’s working? What’s not? Include a simple three-question survey to participants and non-participants alike, and include an open-ended question asking what they want from a wellness program. Use this information to focus on your employees’ goals and areas of interest. What facilities do they need? What classes would be helpful? What types of food should be available at work? Often this feedback will not only help identify the desired wellness programs but exactly what your communications should say and how to say it using the voice of employees.

 
Employee health and wellness programs can make a positive impact on individual employees and the organization as a whole. By creating early awareness, sending thoughtful reminders, segmenting your email lists, highlighting successes, and asking for feedback, your programs will be on the path to success. Strategic employee communications will encourage engagement which will improve employee health and wellness and minimize healthcare costs.