Overview
Employees spend a great deal of their day at work; worksite health promotion programs are a good way to assist employees in health and lifestyle areas that ultimately affect the company’s bottom line. Research continues to show a return on investment to employers when they invest money in the health of their employees through comprehensive health promotion programs.
Encouraging staff to live a healthy lifestyle contributes to better personal health, improved morale and greater commitment to the schools coordinated health program. Staff assessments, health education and fitness activities offer opportunities for improving staff health.
It will help schools, school districts and states develop and support the implementation of school employee wellness programs that promote employee health, improve workforce productivity and reduce the costs of employee absenteeism and healthcare.
What can Employees do to encourage health?
If you’re like most people, your busy day makes healthy eating and getting enough physical activity difficult. Employers and employees share the responsibility in making a healthy work environment. For employees, taking control of your health at work can simply be small changes in your daily routine. Small changes in your daily routine can make a big difference.
- Try counting your steps. Use a pedometer to automatically record each step you take. Pedometers are small, lightweight electronic devices, and are worn on your waistband and virtually unnoticeable.
- Organize lunchtime and after work exercise programs and activities for your co-workers
- Eat a balanced lunches and avoid snacking on high fat foods. Eating the wrong kinds of food could leave you feeling tired and craving sweets and junk food with little to no nutrients to keep you going.
- Night workers should eat lightly throughout their shift and have a moderate breakfast before going to sleep
What can Employers do to encourage health?
Increased job satisfaction, improved morale, reduced illness and injuries, and increased productivity are just some of the benefits of having healthy employees. Promoting health in your workplace does not have to be complicated, expensive or time-consuming. Any organization, large or small, can promote healthy eating and active living in the workplace.
- For lunch meetings, avoid serving chips, fried foods, rich pastas, and salads loaded with dressing. Instead, offer sandwiches, whole grain low fat crackers and cheese, 100 % fruit juice, water, salads with dressing on the side, vegetable and fruit trays
- Plan events and group activities to encourage employees to become active, such as walking programs, contests and challenge events, stretch breaks, team sports or participation in local or provincial events
- Allow for flex time so that employees have more opportunities to participate in fitness programs as part of their working day
- Organize lunch ’n learn sessions to provide information and motivation for healthy eating and active living
Resources
School Employee Wellness: A Guide for Protecting the Assets of Our Nation's Schools has many downloadable materials to support employee wellness at your school, including a comprehensive guide that provides information, practical tools and resources for school employee wellness programs.
Arizona Healthy Work Sites provides information and tools to help businesses in Arizona have healthier worksites and healthier employees. The Program Design page lists the eight steps for developing, implementing, and evaluating a comprehensive worksite program.
CDC's LEAN Works! (Leading Employees to Activity and Nutrition) is a free web-based resource that offers interactive tools and evidence-based resources to design effective worksite obesity prevention and control programs. This resource includes an obesity cost calculator to estimate how much obesity is costing your company and how much savings your company could reap with different workplace interventions
President’s Challenge has helped thousands of organizations and companies implement fitness programs for their employees.
Start! is a Fit-Friendly Companies Program from the American Heart Association that recognizes employers who go above and beyond when it comes to their employees’ health.
Step-By-Step Incentive Campaign is an incentive campaign that moves employees through a 12-week program to incorporate regular walking into their daily lives. The campaign comes complete with a practitioner guide, employee handouts, and interactive checklists.
HealthSmart School Worksite Wellness Toolkit is a comprehensive collection of guidelines and ready-to-use materials to organize a worksite wellness committee and implement worksite wellness programs.
Take Action! is a free, flexible, 10-week employee wellness program that encourages fruit and vegetable consumption and regular physical activity among employees while fostering teamwork and boosting morale.