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 Time of Opportunity
President Barack Obama challenged the nation Saturday March 7, 2009 to not just hang in there but rather to see the hard times as a chance to "discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis." "That is what we can do and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do,"
For worksite wellness program managers and wellness team members, this too is a great time to look for opportunities. Many teams have seen their budgets slashed, benefits plans pared down and incentives reduced or eliminated. Many of us as individuals have experienced our own cut back, reducing how often we eat out to reducing our practice of collecting material clutter.
In the November/December issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion, Michael O'Donnell sited two studies regarding incentives and determined that financial incentives significantly increase participation rates but do not increase long term behavior change success rates in most cases. Since money is not a driving force for behavior change, wellness teams and coordinators can take heart. One example of this is cigarette smoking; every year millions of people with limited incomes find ways to spend thousands of dollars a year on cigarettes. If money alone was a significant motivator no one would smoke. With the new federal tax increase, a pack a day smoker will spend nearly $2,700 annually. That is 700 dollars more than the allowed maximum financial incentive under HIPPA.
It appears that financial incentives may attract the precontemplators and contemplators (using the stages of change theory), people who may be less committed to changing behaviors. Successful behavior change is created through multiple interventions, opportunities to practice new behaviors, policies and supportive environments. Challenging times bring us back to the basics.
The basic elements of a well designed worksite wellness program cost little to implement and can have the most impact on behavior change. This includes opportunities to connect with a person's basic values or tap into intrinsic rewards, long term goals, current priorities, importance of being a good role model, wanting to fit in and life's passion. Culture is built through policies and supportive environments that provide opportunities to create awareness, build motivation, develop and practice new skills and opportunities to form healthy habits. These include tobacco free workplaces, healthy vending machine choices, healthy foods at company functions, drug free workplace policies, alcohol free company functions, healthy food choices in company cafeterias, release time for physical activity, stretch breaks, walking meetings, protection from abusive social situations or harassment, safe work environments and opportunities to add humor and stress management.
Resource allocation for the Balanced Portfolio Approach to Planning Change Strategies:
5% Awareness 30% Motivation 25% Skills 40% Opportunity
Awareness - The health education component, its purpose is to create awareness and help mobilize individuals and organizations in building support of an idea. Having all the information will not cause a person to change. Awareness campaigns using bulletin boards, use of intranet and e-newsletters have little or no cost.
Motivation - When people are motivated to make behavior changes, they will pursue the knowledge and skills necessary to change their behavior. One of the most important developments in understanding motivating employees is the Stages of Change Theory. This is the area with the biggest gap in most wellness programs; strategies that have shown promise include completing a health risk appraisal and/or biometrics with a nurse or health coach, health coaching, and team building with set expectations.
Skills- The biggest problem with many health promotion campaigns is that they tell people what to do, not how to actually integrate the new behaviors into their lives or change their environments to create opportunities to practice the desired behaviors. This step builds confidence and self-efficacy, the higher the level of self efficacy the longer the newly acquired behavior will last before relapse. One of the best ways to develop new skills is to immerse employees in a culture that is based on healthy behaviors through policies, environments and activities.
Opportunity-The supportive culture, policies, facilities, programming and benefit design which shift the focus to the individual we are trying to reach as they advance from building new skills to forming habits. Another type of strategy for this area includes helping others, which helps reinforce the newly acquired behavior while inspiring others. This can include serving as peer mentors, leading support groups, activity groups, promoting programs, joining wellness team, etc.
Don't let these challenging times sideline your wellness programs
Healthy Maine Works! is a free software program that offers:
* Many no cost workplan strategies
* Health Risk Assessments and interest surveys
* Links to resources
* Partner with HCCA for free materials that support your workplan
* Partner with HCCA to link with community resources
* Partner with HCCA to develop sound policies that support your employees' health
* Partner with HCCA to develop supportive environments that support employees' health
* Partner with HCCA to redesign the benefit plan to support the health goals of your
organization
* Partner with HCCA to develop a Health and Productivity Management Worksite
Wellness plan that is right for your organization
And so much more - Call Amy Wagner @ 588-5019 | 
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