A Top-down Approach Can Help Your Program Succeed

Your employees are listening and watching. And when you have leadership buy-in and participation, employees listen and act. The most successful wellness programs have management leading the way to build a culture of health and well-being that starts at the top and branches out throughout a company.

• Anchor your wellness plan goal to a corporate goal, mission or corporate values. This alignment makes it easier to get leadership on board.
• Work with your company's leaders to promote and support employee access to wellness resources. When the boss celebrates healthy changes with employees, the credibility factor goes up.
• Ask leaders to be part of your wellness committee or team. Management can be your best champions by signaling a corporate acceptance of health and wellness. They can even send communications, such as letters, notes, postcards, emails, videos, social media messaging and more, directly to employees encouraging them to participate.
• Look for standout leaders within your organization. These people step up to support important causes and rally others around them. Ask for their help and encourage participation from people at all levels of health.
• Follow up with leadership. Part of your plan needs to include follow-up with leader champions or ambassadors to provide status reports, event images / videos or project updates to keep them connected to your programs.