Corporate Wellness Programs start and end with individual health. Individuals, after all, are able to make decisions about maintaining and / or improving their health and wellbeing. Employee Corporate Wellness Programs must therefore provide the tools and resources necessary to assist and motivate individuals to actively participate in the program.

Individual health is only one part of establishing worker Corporate Wellness Programs. Below you’ll find some things to assist you in your efforts to develop a healthy atmosphere for you and your coworkers.

Encouraging Your Employer to Create an Corporate Wellness Program

This is the first step in establishing a Corporate Wellness Program. In recent times more and more employers are establishing to see the value of promoting and supporting the health of their workers. Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit organization, has released a sourcebook called “Healthy Workforce 2010″ (http://www.wellnessproposals.com/pdfs/tool_kits/healthy_workforce_2010.pdf). This sourcebook is an excellent resource containing information on:

· Benefits of Corporate Wellness Programs

· Suggestions on where to start

· Tools like surveys and assessment forms

These resources are for both employers and workers to lead the development and assess the effectiveness of their new Corporate Wellness Program. Provide it to your employer as a place to start or read it yourself and present your ideas.

Taking Part in Corporate Wellness Programs

Once you have an worker Corporate Wellness Program established, taking part fully in all aspects of the program is important. Many of us know that we need to more actively engage in Corporate Wellness Programs to improve our health, yet have difficulty finding and taking the time to do so. These simple steps can jumpstart your participation in an worker Corporate Wellness Program:

• • Review the offerings that interest you and that you need for health improvement.
  • Schedule time to go to the seminar or service.
  • Actively following through with recommendations from the program.
  • Make a decision now to improve your health. You will feel better today and tomorrow and the next day for actively moving towards wellness.

Here is a list of potential Corporate Wellness Programs that might be available to you at work:

• • ergonomic evaluations and training classes
  • lactation rooms and classes
  • prenatal education program
  • quiet rooms for relaxation
  • stress management programs
  • onsite fitness centers
  • massage therapy
  • nutritional information
  • worksite primary healthcare services
  • child care facility or resources and referral service
  • tobacco cessation programs parenting classes
  • elder care resources and referral service
  • cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose screening programs
  • influenza vaccinations
  • weight management and / or weight loss programs
  • healthcare consumerism programs
  • employee assistance program
  • lifestyle coaching
  • onsite mobile mammography

More information to follow in my next posting about Employee Corporate Wellness Programs