4 Steps to Creating Your Wellbeing Program

As an employer considers introducing a wellness program to its employees, there are several decisions to consider to ensure that the organization has a sustainable foundation to support any long-term wellbeing initiative.

We believe the term “wellbeing” is a more accurate and complete description of health as compared to the conventionally used “wellness.” Wellness can sometimes stimulate limited perceptions amongst employers who want to focus solely on physical health. Alera Group has embraced the foundational research from the Gallup Organization and the resulting published work by T. Rath and J. Harter, Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, to represent a more comprehensive approach to the idea of being “well”. We encourage employers to consider including elements of career, financial, emotional, social, physical, and community into their “well” being strategies.

You can download our full Wellbeing Program Development Guide for more insight on crafting your wellbeing strategy. Here are four key steps to consider as you build your organization's wellbeing plan for 2021.

1. 
   

   Identifying Internal Support. Leadership buy-in is one of the most fundamental elements to establishing a wellbeing effort to ensure long-term support for the program through staffing, budget and resources.

   
   


2. 
   

   Evaluating Financial Resources & Considerations. Some medical carriers will be able to offer financial support in the form of wellness credits. There are often restrictions on how these dollars can be used, sometimes only towards the carriers’ own products or services

   
   


3. 
   

   Defining a Wellbeing Strategy. Collecting data is a good initial strategy to developing a wellbeing program within your organization. Not every group has access to claims data that would identify medical conditions, so there are other methods of getting information to help develop your program

   
   


4. 
   

   Communication & Engagement Strategies. Effective communication and employee engagement often go hand-in-hand with any wellbeing program. Marketing the program, as you would any other benefit, helps to generate awareness and create enthusiasm about the program amongst your employees.

   
   

For a detailed starter guide to plan your organization's wellbeing strategy, download our Wellbeing Program Development Guide.