Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Workplace Wellness Program will help you get and sustain Upper Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Workplace Wellness Program.
The bottom line in Workplace Wellness Programs answer two primary questions:
• How will participant health be improved?
• What’s in it for Upper Management?
The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Workplace Wellness Program impacts readiness.
• Think like Upper Management: what Workplace Wellness Program outcomes will be important from a Upper Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask members how they think a particular Workplace Wellness Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.
Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Workplace Wellness Programs.
Step 1: Think about the end of the Workplace Wellness Program first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or starting any part of the Workplace Wellness Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be improved? What’s in it for Upper Management?
Step 2: Identify concrete Workplace Wellness Program outcomes.
• Identify up front what the Workplace Wellness Program is working towards.
o By way of example: will members lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Identify any processes or procedures that will be improved.
o By way of example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?
Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Workplace Wellness Program goals were met.
• Look at what data is really needed to show Workplace Wellness Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important data points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when deciding what data to collect – consider how easily follow-up data can be collected when a Workplace Wellness Program ends. Getting follow-up data is frequently a challenge.
• Only collect data for health behaviors or indicators that the Workplace Wellness Program actually affected.
o By way of example: if the main Workplace Wellness Program goal is that members will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Workplace Wellness Program outcome (unless the Workplace Wellness Program specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Workplace Wellness Program cannot (or did not) affect.
Step 4: Determine what Workplace Wellness Program elements must be included to move members towards the Workplace Wellness Program goals.
• The concrete Workplace Wellness Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Workplace Wellness Program on track. All Workplace Wellness Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.
Working backwards when planning and starting Workplace Wellness Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Workplace Wellness Programs.
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