Wellness Assessments

Why have Workplace Wellness Program objectives? 

Workplace Wellness Program objectives take your organization’s priorities for employee health improvement and make them specific and measurable. Well-defined Workplace Wellness Program objectives provide direction for selecting Strategies and a basis for which to measure progress. 

Writing Workplace Wellness Program objectives 

Writing Workplace Wellness Program objectives is not complicated or difficult. It does require some thought, about your organization’s Workplace Wellness Program vision for a culture of health and they should be:     

 

      Specific Workplace Wellness Program Goals

      Measurable Workplace Wellness Program Goals

      Attainable Workplace Wellness Program Goals

      Realistic Workplace Wellness Program Goals

      Timely Workplace Wellness Program Goals

Specific Workplace Wellness Program Goals: What is the specific outcome your organization is looking for? “Reduce smoking among staff members” is more specific than “Improve the health of staff members.” You may wish to write some objectives about specific outcomes (reducing smoking among staff members) and other objectives about specific progress (implementing a tobacco-free campus policy or decreasing the price of fresh fruit in the cafeteria to 25 cents a piece). 

Measurable Workplace Wellness Program Goals: Making your objectives measurable provides a means of evaluating your progress and success. There is a saying: “what gets measured, gets done.” Goals which are measurable can be effective motivators for your organization. “Provide more time for staff members to be physically active” is much less measurable than “implement a daily 15-minute walking break into the schedule of all staff members.” “Increase the number of staff members who want to quit smoking” is less measurable than “increase enrollments in the stop-using tobacco program to 120 staff members per year.” 

Attainable Workplace Wellness Program Goals: Establish objectives that challenge your organization to change and that will demonstrate a real commitment to the health of the employees. At the same time, set objectives that are achievable. Goals that are set too far out of reach can be overwhelming and may become a barrier rather than a motivator. 

Realistic Workplace Wellness Program Goals: Write objectives that are do-able, given the skills, time, finances and overall strategy of the organization. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them. 

Timely Workplace Wellness Program Goals: When do you hope to achieve the goal? Next week? Next year? Without a timeframe, the goal is still not clear and is much less likely to galvanize resources and energy within your organization. 

“Reduce the percent of staff members who use tobacco from 20% to 10%” is much less of a challenge than “By the end of 2010, reduce the percent of staff members who use tobacco from 20% to 15%”.