Proven Tips to Increase Employee Engagement in your Wellness Program

Has employee engagement in your wellness program taken a hit recently? Improving employee engagement takes buy-in from leadership and proper planning. Employees today are tired and burnt out! How should you as an organization combat this hit?  Here are nine tips to improve wellness program engagement.

Bring wellness to the meeting! Bringing up wellness during meetings allows for face-to-face interaction and ensures a more captive audience. It also allows for immediate feedback, questions, and explanations. This is a great option for all employees or for workers who aren’t as tech savvy.

You don’t even have to schedule an extra meeting dedicated to wellness. You can simply schedule in a five-minute wellness plug into an already existing meeting. Since buy-in from leadership is important, provide leaders with wellness talking points, news, and reminders. You can also schedule open enrollment meetings for employees who are new to the wellness program to learn more about it directly from a person.

Flyers & Tent Cards

Back to the office? Distribute wellness news and information with flyers and tent cards around the workplace. You can even include QR codes that direct employees to a log in page. Put the flyers up in high traffic areas like bathroom mirrors, stall doors, break/lunch rooms, on vending machines, or by time clocks. Flyers and tent cards are best used for non-techy participants, groups with multiple shifts, or to advertise an upcoming event.

Monitor Displays

Promote, promote, promote! Use TVs, monitors, and other screens to provide visual reminders of upcoming wellness events and promote wellness initiatives. Create PowerPoint slides with simple verbiage and divide text into different sections. Try not to cram too much on there, stick to 2-3 messages only. 

Home Mailing

Still not back to working in the office? Send home post cards or flyers providing tangible communications to employees and their families. Include the latest wellness information and news on the postcard and be sure to direct employees to the portal or website for more information and activities. 

Internal Communication

Use social media, the internet, company newsletters, etc. to provide a platform for employees to easily access wellness information. It improves visibility and access by using hashtags, tags, and links. Create posts with relevant wellness information and news and attach links directly to the portal. This is useful for all employees and for workplaces with multiple locations.

Wellness Committee

Create a wellness champion committee to help set expectations, problem solve, and promote creative sharing. It provides “boots on the ground” communication and feedback. Having a committee of employees can be very beneficial, especially for people who enjoy person-to-person communication. Also, employees tend to be more comfortable and open to receiving information from co-workers.

Pop Up Announcements

Implement pop up announcements or home page banners within your intranet or wellness portal to instantly catch the attention of your employees when logging in. Announcements can help promote important information that must be viewed before arriving to the home page. 

Success Stories

Share success stories, leadership participation, and celebrate winners or top earners! Personalization is a great way to motivate employees.  By getting your senior leadership involved you will also encourage a more health-conscious workplace culture.

Emails

Email communication is a quick and easy way to send visually appealing wellness content to your population. You can send emails directly through your portal or you can include wellness news in your internal newsletter. Remember to always include a call to action at the end of each email you send, directing employees to complete a specific task.

Phew! That is a lot of information! Implementing or even just trying out all nine tips should help build/boost participation in your current wellness program. Are you feeling overwhelmed just reading our tips above?  We are here to help! 

Here at OnSite Wellness, we design tailored wellness programs specific to your workplace. We can help you decide on which strategy is best for your company and help implement it in a way where there will be high engagement. Reach out to us here, to learn more about how we can help your company.