As head of Precept’s internal wellness committee, part of my job is to be a wellness cheerleader. If you are involved in your company’s own wellness committee or program, you know how daunting and discouraging this particular duty can be. But please, don’t lose hope. Wellness is so important, and while it may not always seem so, your duty as the wellness cheerleader is a most necessary and significant one. So, how do you get your employees as excited about wellness as you are?
1. Be aggressive! Be, be aggressive! – Be consistent and repetitive. If your company is largely email-based, send emails out – a lot. If the program you’re trying to implement has a deadline, say, to sign up to join an activity, send out an email once a week, and then every couple of days in the week leading up to the deadline. It may seem annoying, but your employees can’t say you didn’t get the word out. If your company is not largely email-based, hand out flyers, put up posters everywhere. One of my favorite spots to put posters – the employee bathrooms, since nearly everyone will have to use the restroom at least once per day! Make sure you have employees in all languages for your employee base.
2. D-E-F-E-N-S-E DEFENSE! – Make sure to explain to everyone why wellness is so important. Tell them how it will directly affect them – will they save money? Will they lose weight? Will they be rewarded in some way? Give them someone to come to with questions.
3. O-ff-en-se, GO! – Get them involved early. A great way to encourage people to participate is to make it easy and fun. A great way to encourage people to participate is to ask your employees what they would like to see in their wellness program. Do a quick survey of your employees to find out what programs they want and what would motivate them to participate.
4. We got spirit! Yeah, yeah, we got spirit! – If you keep up the momentum, then eventually your employees will get excited, too. It’s important to stock your wellness committee with other people who are as excited about wellness as you are. It’s also important to get committee members from various departments. Your committee is an entire cheer squad, so you need to make sure that your cheerleaders are getting the message out to the whole company.
Getting your company’s employees to change their behavior, to adopt healthier lifestyles and embrace the value of good health means touching their hearts and firing their imagination. The same passion and excitement that fired up your school spirit when you were in high school will fire them up now. You can do it! Go, Fight, WIN!
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