mental health promotion within the workplace and how to implement it

Every Business Organization Needs Its Own Wellness Program

Introduction

The primary concern for any business is assuring return on investment Businesses need to be sure that the money spent will result in profit to the organization . For wellness programs , one of the challenges can be getting management to understand the benefits of such a program . The benefits may not be as immediately obvious in terms of cash profit However , the long term benefits do result in reducing heath care cost and improving worker efficiency and productivity . This change absolutely translates to

cash benefits to a company

Wellness programs can start small and build as the benefits are realized , and become obvious to both management and staff . Programs that simply encourage health and wellness can be easily implemented and can gauge the interest of the workforce before a larger financial investment is made in wellness program . These may include something as simply as providing newsletters on health and wellness . Information and education programs can focus on issues such as doctor visit guideline , tips on how to monitor ones own health , health care screening information , specific disease management information , risk factors , stress management etc

Proactive , more aggressive programs can have bigger results but do require some investment . These options may include gym memberships or access to a company gym , mental health and substance abuse benefits for employees and their families , free classes on healthy cooking and nutrition just to name a few . For businesses , the goal of wellness programs is to reduce healthcare costs , improve productivity . Wellness is really no different than company initiative on programs that improve safety and assure employee compliance with laws including sexual harassment or internet policies . Anything that keeps employees safe healthy and productive can reduces liabilities across the board for the company

Healthier employees mean not only lower direct health-care costs but also reduced absenteeism and higher productivity . According to the National Business Group on Health , every major corporation is working on adopting some form of health improvement plan for employees (Mochari The benefits have become obvious and for management that frequently find that their families benefit too , so support for such program is relatively easy to gain

The benefits of keeping employees feeling young and health is easily understood as healthy employees require less expensive health care and take less days off for illness . One program that gets employees interested in health is called the body age program . This program was used by a company , Clayton Homes in Tennessee . The program gives employees the opportunity to measure their health in terms of the apparent age of their body . They can actually see their age decrease as their health and fitness levels improve . The body age program assesses body age and compares it to chronological age

Long before they were known as wellness employee programs , Japan , in the 1920 's gave employees time during the workday to exercise . Over the years since then and with the rising costs of health-care , businesses have begun to look at...