Employers should take an integrated approach to the design of health and wellness programs.
Sally Luck, HR director, corporate services and wellness at Hallmark Cards, will speak in a session titled Health and wellness in the workplace at Employee Benefits Connect in New York on March 25.
She said: “There is a progression from engaging and educating your employees to really achieving healthy outcomes.”
She will share Hallmark Cards’ success story around employee health and wellness.
“We have had a wellness program for a long time,” she added. “We have a culture of health.
”We started really engaging employees on a broader level back in 2011 with a [financial] incentive plan, and we have seen significant improvement in engagement and participation over those three years. Now we are really moving toward prevention and healthy results.”
The session will cover a range of topics, including:
- How employers can change corporate culture to encourage healthy behaviours.
- The components of a successful and comprehensive corporate wellness program
- How successful wellness programs engage employees and encourage them to become good healthcare consumers.
- How are wellness programs evolving from participation-based to outcomes-based?
“Wellness programs are really expected in companies in the US now,” said Luck.
“They are offered in about 80% of companies with more than 1,000 employees. They can help to mitigate the soaring cost of company-provided healthcare. We are seeing an impact on that, which is a good thing.
“We also have an opportunity to impact the health and wellbeing of our employees’ families. And I think that’s a growing area for wellness programs here, not only the employee but involving the family as well.”
Employee Benefits Connect launches in New York on March 25, 2014 at The Metropolitan Pavilion.