How to Convince Your Boss to Prioritize Wellness Benefits for Employees

So, you want to offer wellness benefits to your employees? You can see it now: gym memberships, healthy snacks, mental health support services, flexible work hours…all the things that create a supportive work environment, motivating your staff and improving employee morale. The greatest wellness programthere ever was.

Of course, if you could implement wellness benefits at the snap of your fingers, it would be a no brainer. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy and you may need to persuade your leadership team that it’s the right move. That means doing your research and proving to your boss that investing in these benefits will positively affect employee health and have long-term benefits for your organization.  

Read on to learn how to convince your boss to prioritize wellness benefits for employees so everyone can benefit from them.

Gather the Evidence

Before you approach your boss about implementing an employee wellness program, consider taking a temperature check of your current workforce. Do they have any health risks? Are they practicing enough healthy behaviors? How much physical activity do they exert every week? You can use surveys, screenings, or interviews to learn the answers to these questions and more. 

You may find that stress levels are high, and workers report a lack of work-life wellness. Or you may find that job satisfaction and overall wellbeing is good, but has room for improvement. Either way, the information you collect can provide concrete evidence that a wellness program would benefit your colleagues. 

Present Statistics and Case Studies

Citing relevant external and internal data can effectively demonstrate the long-term benefits of investing in employee benefits. For example, a recent survey from Gallupreported that when employees are given access to wellness programs and resources, they report increased job satisfaction and productivity.

You may also want to present a few case studies about companies that have implemented successful corporate wellness programs. For example, Googlehas successfully invested heavily in employee wellness activities and other benefits like childcare and daycare services. Microsoftalso promotes a healthy lifestyle by offering perks like a 24-Hour Nurse Line or social clubs for similar interests.

As you collect your research and case studies, consider putting them together as a visual presentation. This will help the leadership team quickly determine how an employee wellness program will affect your bottom line.

Explain Your “Why”

Explaining the reason behind your motivation to provide wellness benefits will help your boss evaluate the proposition more critically. A deeper delve into “the why” also helps build buy-in and ensures that your plan is aligned with the overall goals and objectives of the organization.

Share the Benefits of Wellness Programs for Employees

Workplace wellness programs have been proven to bring many benefits to employees, both mentally and physically. A clear and concise list of advantages can help your employer quickly scan through and understand the positive potential of the program.

You might want to include the following benefits for employees:

• Improved morale and motivation
• Increased productivity
• Reduced workplace stress levels
• Lower risk of chronic diseases and illnesses
• Enhanced mental health
• Lower health insurance premium costs
• Greater job satisfaction
• Reduced absenteeism and improved attendance rates
• Increased energy levels and fewer sick days
• Greater sense of community in the workplace through wellness challenges

Share the Benefits of Wellness Programs for Employers

As mentioned earlier, wellness benefits have a trickle-down effect that can also benefit the employer. To explain how an increase in employee wellbeing leads to tangible business results, consider including these benefits:

• Higher employee retention
• Improved employee engagement, productivity, and efficiency
• Lower healthcare costsdue to fewer absences and illnesses
• Increased attraction of top talentwith better benefits packages
• Enhanced company reputationin the marketplace as an employer that values its workforce

Describe How You’d Implement Wellness Benefits

When developing a culture of health at work, it is essential to create a framework that provides clear objectives and goals. This will help ensure that benefits meet your employees’ needs and considers any limitations, such as budget or time constraints.

As part of your persuasive presentation, consider explaining what activities you would include in the wellness program and how often they’d occur. You can discuss a range of physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual activities employees could participate in.

Examples of wellness initiatives include:

• Health screenings to measure physical health issues such as high blood pressure
• Catered lunches for healthy eating interventions
• Courses that educate on mindfulness, exercise, and other healthy habits
• Wellness interventions like weight loss competitions, financial wellbeing courses, and smoking cessation programs

It would also be helpful to lay out a plan for how the program will be monitored and managed effectively. Will you or the employee be tracking progress with specific metrics? If so, which ones will you measure? Will this information be visible to co-workers to encourage healthy competition, or will it be private? And how will you analyze the results to ensure the program is successful?

When it comes to analyzing performance, one solution is to use a wellness program softwareto track performance and improvements. Depending on your program, you may also be able to sync this information to your existing HR platform to keep things streamlined. 

Create a Hub of Resources and Reference Information 

Another valuable step in the process of convincing your leaders is to organize all relevant resources into a central location. A hub that stores your presentations, docs, or other persuasive materials will make it easy for your leadership team to find and reference information during the decision-making process. It can also act as a space to collaborate, offering opportunities to make suggestions and enhance the plan accordingly.

Your leadership team will appreciate anything that can reduce overwhelm and make the decision process smoother. Visual aidsmake new information more engaging and easily digestible. So consider adding FAQ pages with visuals and quick facts to this hub.

Ask for a Test Run

There’s one more thing you can do to convince your company to add on a wellness program: ask for a rest run. Rather than rolling out an expansive program right away, try suggesting a trial period for a select group of employees. This can be an excellent option for smaller companies that don’t have the budget to commit to an endeavor without the proof that it pays off.

With a test run, you can gather data on how the program performs, what needs improvement, and which activities resonate with employees. Your employees’ feedback can help shape a better wellness program once you are ready to launch it. 

If you need help implementing a wellness benefits program into your company, feel free to reach out to a Wellbeing specialist. We’ll help you develop a program that your boss (and your employees) won’t be able to resist!

References

• Benefits at Google. (2023). Google. Retrieved on January 26, 2023 from https://careers.google.com/benefits/. 
• Best corporate wellness software. (2023). G2Crowd. Retrieved on January 26, 2023 from https://www.g2.com/categories/corporate-wellness. 
• Employee Wellbeing is Key for Workplace Productivity. Gallup. Retrieved on January 26, 2023 from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/215924/well-being.aspx. 
• Make the most of life. (2023) Microsoft. Retrieved on January 26, 2023 from https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/usbenefits. 
• The power of visual in teaching and learning. (June 25, 2021). F Learning. Retrieved on January 26, 2023 from https://flearningstudio.com/the-power-of-visual-in-teaching-and-learning/.