Physical Activity
- Encourage employees to walk to a specific location and log individual miles for incentive prizes.
- Participate in community walks (i.e., Heart, Cancer, March of Dimes). Ask company to sponsor employee participants or to match employee contributions.
- Develop indoor and outdoor wellness trails accessible to employees of all abilities. Convert stairwells to walking areas by increasing the lighting and adding colorful posters.
- Develop walking maps. Measure the distance in halls and around the building for setting walking goals.
- Repair and maintain sidewalks and paths around the worksite.
- Encourage managers to hold walking meetings when meeting with a small number of employees.
- Offer flexible lunch periods/breaks to encourage individual, group or “buddy” walks.
- Offer incentives for distance parking and for employees who walk or bicycle to work.
- Promote a stair climbing competition.
- Conduct an “Avoid the Elevator Campaign.”
- Suggest that employees stretch for one minute before work each day. Announce a one minute stretch on the PA system.
- Encourage physical activity breaks during long meetings and conferences.
- Identify places within the worksite or around the building for physical activities.
- Start a running club, biking club, in-line skaters club, or line dancing club.
- Encourage employer-sponsored youth athletic teams, along with employee volunteer coaches.
- Have a Goal of the Week or Month (i.e., I will exercise every day for a week). Keep a chart of weekly or monthly exercise goals in the office.
- Negotiate corporate discounts for health club memberships.
- Place physical fitness bulletin board(s) in strategic area(s).
- Advertise exercise equipment swap.
- Purchase cassette tape players and tapes to be borrowed by employees.
- Invite shoe consultants from retail shoe stores or shoe manufacturers to be on site for a day.
- Promote a bike helmet fitting day.
- Provide bicycle racks or fenced-in area for bicyclists in well-lit section of the property.
Physical Activity
- Ask vending machine company to add healthy foods.
- Use vending machine commissions to help fund wellness programs.
- Work with vending machine company and cafeteria to post calories and nutrient contents and amounts on vending machines, lunchroom tables, etc.
- Place incentive stickers on low fat items in vending machines and on healthy choice selections in cafeteria.
- Develop a cookbook of employees’ low fat recipes, exchange recipes, and feature healthy employee recipe periodically on cafeteria menu.
- Hold recipe contests.
- Celebrate “free fruit day” – give apples away.
- Have a home grown fruit and vegetable exchange.
- Request that cafeteria vendors serve low fat, low cholesterol, nutritious foods.
- Encourage fruit and vegetable day in the cafeteria.
- Identify one heart healthy snack idea daily in the cafeteria.
- Add healthy snacks to snack cart (i.e., fruit, granola bars).
- Request that cafeteria foods be made from 1% milk instead of whole milk.
- Hold low fat cooking demonstrations in cafeteria.
- Suggest that employees keep a list of healthy, low fat snacks in their cars.
- Encourage employees to bring yogurt, fruits and no fat toppings to work.
- Change a donut break to a bagel and low fat topping break at meetings. Plan company functions with heart healthy eating choices in mind.
- Conduct support group for weight management. Sponsor company weight reduction programs.
- Offer information on packing healthy brown bag lunches.
- Hold employee luncheon – bring a healthy lunch to pass, and share the recipe.
- Encourage employees to bring crock pots of heart healthy soup and share with others.
- Encourage employees to bring yogurt, fruits and no fat toppings to work.
- Change a donut break to a bagel and low fat topping break at meetings. Plan company functions with heart healthy eating choices in mind.
- Conduct support group for weight management. Sponsor company weight reduction programs.
- Offer information on packing healthy brown bag lunches.
- Hold employee luncheon – bring a healthy lunch to pass, and share the recipe.
- Encourage employees to bring crock pots of heart healthy soup and share with others.
- Promote “eat your greens” on St. Patrick’s Day.
- Share mocktails (non-alcoholic beverages) recipes.
- Offer kitchen area accessible to all employees.
- Offer reasonable prices for healthy snacks (i.e., fresh fruit, yogurt), meals and salad bars.
- Put up food pyramid charts in break room/cafeteria areas.
- Have office water coolers readily available.
- Offer videos, books and brochures that can be borrowed and exchanged among employees.
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Stress Management
(Exercise and good nutrition are great stress-busters.)
- Offer chair massages at health fairs.
- Take stress relief breaks (i.e., meditation, walking, close the door). Encourage employees to take time out for themselves.
- Suggest that employees volunteer to take a pet from a shelter for a walk.
- Encourage laughter to reduce stress at the worksite.
- Provide employees with relaxation tapes.
- E-mail computer break tips.
- Address emotional and spiritual concerns with self-help books that can be borrowed or exchanged.
- Get involved with community volunteer activities.
- Encourage employees to mentor a child.
- Encourage staff to take meal breaks.
- Encourage self-confidence and positive outlooks.
- Promote a “Call-A-Friend” campaign. Provide social support.
- Hold a secret pal drawing. During the month, each employee is encouraged to do nice things for his or her secret pal (i.e., e-mail messages, fax messages with directions to a healthy snack, secret message left on a chair, special gifts, such as fat free candy or home grown flowers).
Tobacco
- Subsidize nicotine patches.
- Promote smoke-free buildings/meeting rooms.
- Lower health insurance costs for non-smokers.
- Provide health information focused around monthly or seasonal events (i.e., Great American Smoke Out).
- Provide on-site smoking cessation programs.
- Reimburse employees for enrolling in smoking cessation programs.
- Give a $50 U.S. Savings Bond to expectant mothers who agree to not smoke and avoid alcohol during pregnancy.
Program Support
- Provide incentives: T-shirts, caps, aprons. Arrange paid time off.
- Hold contests: “Wellness Project of the Month” or “Set Your Goal” competition, employee/management and interdepartmental challenges, health trivia game on computer with prizes to the winners, and other fun worksite competitions.
- Set up displays in the reception area/lobby. Display health posters in employees’ lunch/meeting rooms.
- Provide bulletin boards for health information exchange and for people to write milestones they have achieved in health (i.e., New Year’s resolution, miles walked, pounds lost).
- Announce and publicize a monthly health theme.
- Conduct recognition activities for employees making efforts at healthier lifestyles (i.e., bulletin board listings, healthy incentives, discounts to health clubs). Send employees personally-signed letters from CEO congratulating their healthy behaviors. Promote success stories/employee of the month. Recognize the coordinator of wellness activities.
- Kick off “lunch and learn” programs. Use videos and guest speakers on various health topics at lunchtime. Urge employees to bring healthy brown bag lunch.
- Include children of employees in a drawing contest with health as the theme.
- Provide child care so that parents can participate in wellness activities.
- Have company health practitioner set a time (weekly/ monthly) to check blood pressures, body fat and weights.
- Provide flu shots at the worksite or make schedules of community clinics available.
- Provide one-on-one counseling for high risk employees and people with disabilities by establishing wellness mentoring programs.
- Develop a brainstorming team for ideas and to help with wellness activities.
- Conduct survey to assess what topics employees want to pursue.
- At meetings:
- Start with a stretch, and take a relaxation break in the middle.
- Conduct a wellness activity.
- Recognize an employee birthday or other special event.
- Vary meeting formats. Include surprises for good ideas.
- Allow staff members to occasionally lead a meeting.
- Provide information on back care (i.e., correct way to lift, stretch and exercise for strength).
- Partner with other local organizations to sponsor an event. Share expenses and other resources. Network/ collaborate with other businesses for discounts at health clubs.
- Obtain book company discounts.
- Rotate departmental responsibility, and utilize college interns to assist with wellness projects/events.
- Gain senior management support by showing a good example.
- Create a wellness newsletter. Highlight healthy lifestyle success stories.
- Conduct employee health fairs with wellness giveaways (i.e., gift certificates to farmers market, fruit stand).
- Provide health information (i.e., fact sheets) for employees to take home. Distribute safety information before long holiday weekends.
- Conduct retirement seminar – wellness for retirement.
- Conduct “Wash Your Hands” campaign.
- Insert health information in paychecks (payroll stuffers).
- Publish weekly health tips on internal e-mail.
- Attend classes on positive management styles.
- Change and clean filters on air conditioners more frequently.
- Track illness in a department, and alert employees by providing precaution and prevention tips.
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