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Well To Do (a checklist for employee wellbeing)

What are the key steps in designing and implementing a successful wellbeing strategy? Which elements are critical, and which are nice-to-haves? Rob Woollen presents his ‘5 Cs of wellness’, and explains how they can help to make sure your wellbeing programme is both effective and efficient.

Commit
Consult
Champion
Communicate
Commercialise

Successful wellness programmes can produce significant return on investment, but only if your organisation is prepared to commit to them in terms of time and money. Organisations such as the Manchester Metropolitan University, Danone and Adidas have produced measurable results, but only by investing initially in the development of a truly strategic framework with smart, targeted goals.

Wellbeing is a genuine win-win situation for your company and its staff. But unless you consult them when designing the programme you risk their distrust, disinterest and perhaps disapproval. Wellbeing can (and should) be a unifying force in organisations and involving employees at all levels in its design and delivery pays dividends across the board. Not only are they more likely to participate in something they have ownership of, but in many cases their input is invaluable in determining what will be accepted and what needs to be addressed. Unions and other staff associations can be of great help in supporting wellbeing – as long as they feel involved and understand the genuine benefits to their members.

Having committed to the programme, engaged your staff and designed a strategy, the next critical step is to appoint champions for the cause. These health champions must be drawn from every level of the organisation. Peer champions allow people to feel that this is not some sneaky management trick whilst a board-level champion makes it clear that this is something genuinely supported by the organisation at the highest level.

As well as providing a visible show of commitment, your champions will help you to communicate the wellbeing message to staff and also to customers. I have advised on a number of wellness strategies that have just not had the impact they should due to insufficient internal promotion. People need to know what is available to them and why they should use it.

Finally, in order to survive, your wellness strategy must be built on solid foundations just like any other business model. The buy-in you achieved from senior management at the beginning will only be maintained if you can show that wellness makes good commercial sense. To prove this you will need to set clear and tangible objectives and show that you have achieved them. Although it is not true that you cannot change what you cannot measure, it is true that you cannot prove the change. Setting valid performance indicators and ensuring that you address them is the only way to get the wellbeing budget again next year. Every aspect of your programme should be designed to meet a need and to have a specific effect.

Following the 5 Cs will not guarantee the success of your wellness programme, but it will help you to avoid many of the mistakes made by those whose programmes (whilst well meant) ultimately fail.

Rob Woollen is the founder and lead consultant at Rightway Employee Wellbeing Solutions.