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Employee Wellness Program

Employee wellness programs are a comprehensive set of strategies that employers design
and implement in workplaces with the goal of promoting a healthy work environment and
individual health of employees. Apart from improving the health of employees, wellness
programs also help employers save costs as healthier employees fall sick less frequently (Mattke
et al., 2015). Here is a look at my employee wellness program, its components, strengths, and
weaknesses.
At my workplace, the wellness program includes multiple benefits and policies that are
meant to help employees achieve their safety and health needs. The strategies also include
environmental support so that the health and wellness of employees is not hampered by a
restrictive workplace environment.
The key components of the wellness program are health education, fitness facilities,
availability of healthy foods, policies that encourage healthy behaviors, and incentives for
participation in the program. On education, the company has regular wellness classes where
employees get information that helps them live a healthy life. There are also brochures and other
educational materials that the company provides to employees for free. The employer also has
established fitness facilities of all kinds that employers can use after work. As for policies and
measures that support healthy living, the employer has vending machines that provide employees
with healthy foods and strict restrictions on smoking. As for incentives, employees who regularly
participate in the program are given free healthy foods for a month to take home.
In my view the biggest strength of the wellness program is the wide of range of strategies
that have been employed to help employees achieve wellness and health. Rather than restricting

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themselves to just one strategy such as providing fitness facilities, the program provides
education and creates a workplace environment that is geared towards having employees who are
healthy. It is, therefore, a very comprehensive program that touches on practically every aspect
of employee’s wellness. Another strength is that it’s incentives are related to the programs goal of
improving health and wellness of employees. Rather than giving active participants cash or some
other gift not related to the program, it provides them with healthy foods.
As for weakness of the program, I feel that it is not inclusive enough. In particular, its
fitness facilities do not allow employees with physical disabilities to make use of them. The
program would be better if it also took the interests of employees with physical disabilities into
consideration.

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References

Mattke, S., Kapinos, K., Caloyeras, J. P., Taylor, E. A., Batorsky, B., Liu, H., & Newberry, S.
(2015). Workplace wellness programs: services offered, participation, and
incentives. Rand health quarterly, 5(2).