Selling health topics to a motley assortment of fairly sedentary people is no mean feat.
But it’s one you take on every day because you understand the importance of workplace health and wellness, and how having employees in tip-top physical and mental condition will keep your business that way, too.
More and more corporations are realizing that there is a major return on investment for health and wellness programs, that healthy workers are more productive and less costly, and that a supportive, motivational work environment infuses hardworking individuals with a sense of loyalty to your company, ensuring that the good ones will stick around.
As a go-between for the company and the employees, you’re tasked with showing workers ways to change their lifestyles for the good of their health. For many people, used to working at a desk and walking only to and from the bathroom and the vending machines, tossing out their daily habits and adopting new ones sounds pretty unpalatable.
Simply put, they like to eat what they want, when they want, they don’t like to exercise, and as far as preventive health care goes, ignorance is bliss.
Changing their minds about those things is hard, and sometimes impossible. But you plant the seeds of better health in their heads and hope that something will take root.
If you’re new to the corporate wellness scene, or even if you’re just taking a back-to-basics approach with a particularly stubborn staff, start with one relatively easily addressed issue. Take routine health screenings, for example.
If you can provide enough compelling facts to get them to make an appointment to have their blood glucose and cholesterol levels and blood pressure checked, put that in your success column.
High blood pressure, prediabetes, or high cholesterol discovered at a doctor’s office may be enough to scare some people into making lifestyle changes on their own. If you’re having trouble getting them to actually make those appointments (and keep them), consider putting together a health fair that would offer free screenings by medical professionals.
And if, after getting less-than-stellar results, they need a little guidance in starting a new diet and exercise program, well, that’s why they’re lucky to have you!
You can provide them with all the information necessary to embark on an all new, health-wise life that will benefit both of you.
