This week, Zywave had our annual biometric screening event, where anyone who is enrolled in a company-sponsored health plan had the opportunity to get their biometric stats tested, including BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. When combined with a comprehensive health assessment, biometric screenings can provide employees valuable information about their risk for chronic, preventable conditions, and can provide a roadmap for disease prevention and overall improved health. As you’re likely aware, employers benefit from wellness initiatives like biometric screenings and health awareness campaigns, as healthier employees often leads to lower health care costs, greater productivity and higher employee satisfaction.

The broker’s role

As a broker, workplace wellness is an area that you can add value to your client relationships – and clients are asking for it.

A recent RAND Corporation study found that more than 85% of U.S. companies employing 1,000 or more people have some sort of workplace wellness program implemented [1], yet only 24% of employees at those companies actually participate. Meanwhile, 81% of employers would like support from their broker regarding workplace wellness, while only half are receiving broker resources.

With today’s rising health care costs and increasing individual focus on health, wellness is becoming more and more important. As a broker, offering wellness support is a great value added service or a way to incorporate a fee-for-service model – plus a way to differentiate from those brokers who don’t offer this valuable service.

Steps to a successful wellness program

So what can you do to help your clients ensure a successful wellness program? The following are four critical factors that will contribute to the success and sustainability of a workplace wellness program.

1. A commitment from senior management. It is crucial that senior management is on board with the idea with a wellness plan, and is committed to seeing the wellness program through from inception.

2. Create a wellness team. A wellness team should consist of potential program participants and represent different areas of the company. This is so opinions of different areas are taken into account and so those who are likely going to be utilizing the program help guide its direction.

3. Collect data. A wellness program should be based on several different factors including:

• Employee preferences, which can be collected through a survey
• A health risk assessment taken by participating employees to see where health risks are, which can help guide your program
• Claims analysis, to discover where the company is spending money on health claims. Identifying cost drivers can help determine the direction of a wellness plan and determine whether there are specific areas the company’s wellness program should hone in on.

4. Develop a plan. Any successful wellness program will have the following components:

• A mission statement and goals
• A reasonable budget
• An execution plan
• Evaluation

The success of a wellness program depends largely on the commitment put into it and the communications surrounding the program. If employees are not aware of a wellness program, they are not going to participate. In addition to helping your client draft a plan to get a wellness program off the ground, this is a key area brokers can support workplace wellness, through educational and promotional resources to build awareness.

Zywave brokers have hundreds of customizable wellness resources at their fingertips, including two out-of-the-box wellness programs (and thousands of other value-add resources) in Broker Briefcase.

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