GYMPASS PRESENTS THE INFOPASS SERIES: Wellness Champions: The Secret to Driving Employee Engagement Through Health Promotion Workplace wellness programs are big—as exciting (33% vs 16%), or interesting (66% in $40 billion a year global industry big—but vs 30%). Additionally, this population is also many of them fall short. While most employees overwhelmingly prouder to be associated with say they would participate, many don’t for one, their place of work (68% vs 19%).1 very solvable reason: they don’t know their company offers one. The success (or failure) of any workplace wellness program hinges on one key question: Enter the wellness champion network, your do employees believe that your company key to maximizing employee engagement. genuinely cares about their well-being? Wellness champions are a diverse group of Today, corporate wellness is a behemoth in employees who serve as the communicators, the marketplace. Globally, it’s a $40 billion motivators, promoters, and leaders of your industry2–but even the most innovative wellness program. The relationships they build initiatives will fall short if employees do not in their role can be the difference between an take part. As such, the true differentiator authentic wellness program that shows your between a successful and failed wellness company cares, and one that falls flat. program rests on whether employees believe the intentions behind workplace A disturbingly low 37% of employees say their well-being programs are authentic. How can company cares about their personal well- organizations prove that they are invested 1 being. However, those that do feel supported in their employees? The answer: building by their firms are significantly more engaged, relationships. and more than twice as likely to report their work to be satisfying (52% vs 25%),
1 What is a Wellness Champion Network?
A wellness champion network leverages social connection to promote a culture of health. The Society for Human Resource Management defines a wellness champion network as “a group of employees who work to improve the health and culture of the workplace in conjunction with an employer-sponsored wellness program.”3 These networks are comprised of ambassadors, or champions, who promote your wellness brand at their site locations and motivate colleagues to engage in programming and activities that support their well-being.
Wellness champions help develop your wellness brand by sharing insights about wellness opportunities at their locations and defining as a group what well-being looks like. Together, they are the communicators, motivators, promoters, and leaders of the employer-sponsored wellness program. How to Identify Wellness Champions The best wellness champion networks are Here’s a list of characteristics we look for when made up of a diverse group of individuals who considering new champions at Gympass: are both passionate about well-being and active members of their local office culture. Effective Confidence Their social influence often makes them more communicators effective at encouraging people to participate in wellness programs than HR or executive Makes staying active leaders. It’s important to understand your a part of their daily routine champion brand vision. In other words, Passionate about what do you want your wellness champions Committed the wellness to the to look like? program, but organization’s not overly so* overall wellness goals
Resourceful and respectful Team player
*Remember, your champion group doesn’t need to be filled with marathon runners or people who walk 40,000 steps a day–in fact, it shouldn’t. A well-balanced wellness champion group is a mix of people who are passionate, well-rounded, and reflective of your workplace culture. The right mix of people, like successful wellness programs, should reflect a holistic picture, rather than one solely focused on physical health.
2 SHAPE A WELLNESS CHAMPION NETWORK 1 IDENTIFY WELLNESS CHAMPIONS
Confident, effective Passionate Diverse and reflective communicators about wellness of workplace culture
Creating the Right Mix
When strategizing and developing your wellness championship program, here are a few more questions to consider as you set your expectations. 1. Do you want to appoint roles or ask volunteers? 2. How does the champion benefit? 3. What departments should your champions represent? Note that not all champions should come from the HR department. 4. Could someone benefit from a stretch opportunity? 5. Consider time commitment. Will people have enough time to do what you need? 6. Do you need manager approval? Can you get it if it is necessary?
Answers to all of these questions will vary based on location and company size. If your company is international, you may need country leadership’s buy-in to help you roll out your program globally. Influencer groups will vary. Be sure to consider the different types of influencers you may need to include based on worksite context, such as a union group. The key to creating the right mix of wellness champions is identifying individuals at all your office locations who will be able to motivate employees to participate and share their stories.
3 Setting the Stage for Success
Now that you have identified who your To kick off the initiative, set up an onboarding champions will be, it’s time to set expectations meeting to welcome everyone and discuss and put together your communications plan. roles, commitment, and goals for the first 90 When assembling a new wellness committee, days. Be sure to invite all your champions to it can be very helpful to provide champions this onboarding session, either in person or with an actual job description. Here is a sample virtually. list of roles and responsibilities: Pro tip: Pass out swag at the meeting (and • Educate colleagues on wellness goals, make sure that you send it to those who programs, and incentives to inspire peers cannot join you in person at the kickoff by setting a positive wellness example beforehand.) This simple gesture can make a • Distribute marketing and communication huge difference community building. materials • Collaborate with wellness team to plan and Prior to kickoff, prepare localized onboarding execute site-based event communications materials for all regions. Whether your program is international or • Act as liaison between local and regional regional, take care to confirm that everything wellness team makes sense in local context. • Record details of site events and activities in online database The onboarding call with your champions • Participate in champion calls and gatherings sets the stage for local, regional, or even to share ideas and best practices international groups to connect with one another about their goals and how they plan to To legitimize the duties and time commitment achieve them. Facilitating and participating in to fulfill this role, we recommend including this conversation ensures that your champions champion-specific KPIs as a part of their have the support that they need to ideate, overall employee performance scorecard. strategize, and ultimately roll out their local Doing this will reinforce the validity of wellness programming. champions and your company’s commitment to creating a culture of health.
4 SHAPE A WELLNESS CHAMPION NETWORK 2 CREATE A KICKOFF MEETING
Discuss roles Establish KPIs Participate and and goals to fulfill show support
Establish a Communications Strategy
Establish monthly calls for champions to Here are a few more communication tactics to connect with one another. This provides an help your wellness champion network meet opportunity for them to reflect on initiatives, their goals: identify needs gaps, and share learnings as a community. In tandem, schedule quarterly 1. Designate internal social media or intranet meetings between all key stakeholders. These groups for champions to ask their peers meetings will allow HR leaders to share any questions, give one another support, and company-wide wellness programming updates help inform future strategy. or new initiatives, as well as the ability to share 2. Host an annual champion summit. overall engagement numbers. 3. Create a weekly newsletter with champion When preparing the agenda, budget time for spotlights, local roll-outs, and the like. everyone on the call to contribute. Encourage Recognizing their hard work while taking an champions to share local initiatives, celebrate omni-channel approach to communication victories, or voice concerns they might have will allow them to get the information they from a business perspective. Establishing need as it is relevant to them. ongoing, regular, two-way conversations is critical to program success.
5 Lastly, give your wellness champions access to the tools and platforms they need to get the word out. A recent US survey noted that many employees would be open to participating in a company’s wellness program, but 69% said that they weren’t aware that their organization had workplace well-being initiatives at all.4
Keep up steady communications in a variety of media like emails, newsletters, posters, and intranet announcements to keep programming top-of-mind. Additionally, take care to alter your program messaging to resonate with different workforce demographics. For example, an employer-sponsored bike share program can be promoted to millennials as a healthy and green initiative. Gen-Xers might be more interested in blood pressure benefits, and Boomers may be more interested in the low-impact exercise they would get out of participating in the program.
SHAPE A WELLNESS CHAMPION NETWORK 3 ESTABLISH A COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
Set up monthly calls Provide feedback Keep wellness top-of-mind