Creating Positive Reinforcement For An Employee Wellness Program

Employee wellness programs are a fantastic way to build team morale while also ensuring the health and happiness of your employees. By promoting healthy eating, exercise, and habits, you'll be able to improve upon your employee productivity and satisfaction. But that doesn't mean that employees can do this on their own -- they often need to be motivated. This should always be done through positive reinforcement.

Creating a Friendly Competition

It's important that any wellness program have the right atmosphere. Creating a competition is a great way to motivate people while also ensuring that they have fun -- but it has to be done the right way. Inter-departmental competitions are almost always better than pitting employees against each other as individuals. A department competition will foster a feeling of collaboration and teamwork rather than divisiveness. 

Offering Custom Award Trophies and Certificates

Everyone wants to feel appreciated -- and usually for the amount of effort that they put in, not necessarily the end results. By creating a variety of categories in which you can offer award trophies and certifications, you should be able to make many of your employees feel valued and noticed. Trophies can arrange from "the amount of time spent at the corporate gym," to the "amount of progress made towards goal weight." Just make sure that everything is done with sensitivity in mind. For more information or assistance, contact companies like Abilene Awards & Logos.

Letting Employees Set Their Own Goals 

As an employer or human resource manager, it's generally not your responsibility to tell an employee what their health goals should be. Instead, you should let them decide what their goals are. Whether they wish to gain weight, lose weight, skip carbs, or reduce sugars, letting your employees define their own success will help them remain motivated.

Keeping the Tracking Visible

Whether you use a low-tech blackboard or a high-tech app, keeping progress tracked somewhere is the best way to keep employees working towards their goals. Tracking should always be open and visible, though it should track the progress of a team rather than individuals -- otherwise individuals may feel too pressured to perform. Individuals can still track their own progress, however, which will give them a way to quickly review how well they've been performing. 

With issues such as employee health and wellness, it's important to be very sensitive. This is way positive reinforcement methods, such as those outlined above, are the best option. Always make sure that your employees are able to comfortably opt-out if they desire, and provide safe avenues for communication.