Creating Post-Pandemic Corporate Wellness Programs

How can you help your employees while keeping healthcare costs in-check?

Did you know that work-related stress can develop into serious physical conditions, such as heart disease? Tight deadlines, being short-staffed, and ever-increasing job demands often cause people to stay in a stressed-induced state for the long term. Include the additional anxiety brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, and you can see why workplace stress is increasingly referred to as a “silent killer”.
 

Work stress is not uncommon. Approximately 40% of workers report their jobs as being extremely stressful. Yet, work-related stress is not only disastrous for mental and physical health, but it also results in a loss of productivity and company costs in the macros.
 
Work stress is estimated to cost American companies more than $300 billion per year in healthcare, absenteeism, and poor performance. In addition, 40% of job turnover is due to stress.
 
While the pandemic has caused many businesses to focus on protecting their employees physically (eg, providing technical support to ease the transition to work-from-home and introducing new leave policies), they’re often missing out on the mental health aspect of employee wellness. Unfortunately, the toll Covid-19 has had on mental health is expected to continue, even as the virus itself begins to dwindle.
 
How can you help your employees while keeping healthcare costs in-check? Develop a corporate wellness program that targets both the physical and mental stress of work, keeping employees happy and healthy, plus improving productivity and reducing the healthcare price tag.

Developing a Corporate Wellness Program

A corporate wellness program should be designed to support and encourage a holistic approach to your employees’ well-being by organizing the corporate culture around health. Stitching a holistic wellness program into your business means that you are not just caring for your employees on paper—it is integrated into your company’s everyday operations. 

1. It Must Be Accessible and Relatable

An effective corporate wellness program is accessible from anywhere—at home or on the go, all employees should have access to their healthcare network, records, and methods at their fingertips. Convenient, easy-to-use program features will promote participation and accountability.
 
Senior management is the role-model here: when a stress-reducing program is adopted by this particular group of participants, other employees will follow suit. Stress and mobility are key factors in senior roles, which makes these participants the best examples of successful stress-reduction. 

2. It Leverages Technology

From tracking your health to monitoring vitals, your wellness program must be able to measure your employees’ data in real-time. Adopting technology in the day-to-day of your organization is important, as your wellness program will not just issue the tech—it will use the data to help employees make informed decisions about their healthcare.
 
Synchronize medical insights with wearable health technology, such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Oura ring. These types of wearables let your employees (the patients) actively share their progress with medical providers (eg, real-time insights into stress and anxiety), understand their current health metrics, and recognize where improvements can be made. Wearables will further personalize their health plans and empower employees to identify and alleviate work stressors.
 
Along with lab tests and gathered medical history, these data should be reviewed by a trained physician; measuring the data allows healthcare professionals to customize strategies and rule-out possibilities. Solutions are worked into each employee’s wellness plan—giving your employees a better understanding of their health and stressors.
 
With this precision health approach, chronic conditions can be treated and even reversed. This means more productivity for your business, overall happier employees, and a better bottom line. It’s not just crucial to have a holistic wellness program in place. Your organization can’t afford not to. 

3. It Provides a Whole Healthcare Team

It’s crucial that your employees have access to a credible healthcare team, such as physicians, health coaches, mental health professionals, and dietitians. This gives them a personalized plan fit for their needs only. From learning what foods to eat to boost productivity, to having someone to talk to when things feel overwhelming, having a health professional in your corner is empowering.
 
Finding trustworthy healthcare professionals can add to the stress of your employees’ days. By including these services in your corporate wellness program, you can minimize that pressure, plus make it easier for your employees to access these services. 

4. It Should Be Customizable

Each of your employees is different. Some may have a history of mental illness in their family, while others struggle with diabetes or other chronic conditions. Because each person’s health profile is as unique, their health and wellness plan must also be unique. It is imperative that your employees can modify their plans to fit their needs.
 
From specific lab tests to tailoring the services utilized in your wellness plan, your employees should have access to the products and healthcare services that are going to benefit them the most. Each plan should be customized to minimize work stress by focusing on what that specific employee will need and giving them access to it. 

5. It Needs To Be Precise and Preventative

Identifying, targeting, and healing are just half of a well-rounded healthcare program—prevention is the other half. Harnessing the data from wearables, lab test results, and consultations, healthcare professionals can identify markers that would make an employee vulnerable to developing an illness, chronic or acute. Adapting each plan allows your employees to identify their areas of vulnerability and learn how to strengthen them, making their healthcare goal to stay healthy. 

Dr. Innocent Clement is the CEO and Founder of Ciba Health.   Connect Dr. Innocent Clement Follow @DrCInno