1. Creating a Healthy Work Environment in Your School
Employee Wellness:
Creating a Healthy Work Environment in Your School
Good morning! Welcome to this school worksite wellness training. My name is Dave Gardner and I am the Worksite Wellness and School Coordinator for the Community and Clinical Connections for Prevention and Health Branch at the NC Division of Public Health. I am excited about having the opportunity to spend the day with you and the work we will do together to support worksite wellness efforts in your schools.

2. Introductions Name Job title School or department
Number of school or department staff
What is one healthy thing you do most days?
Now I would like to give you a few minutes to introduce yourselves and meet other participants in the room. When you find yourself in the introduction “spotlight” please share the information on the screen and do so in your best classroom management voice and posture.

3. In 2014 the Community and Clinical Connections for Prevention and Health Branch of the NC Division of Public Health received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support worksite wellness programs in five regions of the state. The goal of this initiative is to promote, establish and support worksite wellness programs in worksites across five regions of the state.

4. Why Employee Wellness in Your School?
Historically, worksite wellness programs have not been a basic part of schools. However, the Coordinated School Health Program model has been promoted and supported in North Carolina Public Schools for many years and Faculty and Staff Wellness is one of the ten components of the Coordinated School Health and Whole School/Whole Community/Whole Child model. In reality, few schools across the state have established and maintained school worksite wellness programs.
In the process of introducing Wellness Wins in Greene, Jones and Lenoir counties, the State Health Plan had to make a case for the benefits of worksite wellness to key audiences. The State Health Plan may have taken that responsibility off your plate. However, you may need to make the case for worksite wellness as you communicate with the same and other key audiences in order to establish and sustain a worksite wellness program.
Making the case involves educating key individuals and groups on the benefits that worksite wellness can bring to schools, school districts and employees.

5. The Big Picture…

6. Schools as Worksites Unique work environment Unique customer(s) focus
Physical environment
Calendar and schedule
Product and mission
Unique customer(s) focus
Stress
Accountability, scrutiny and criticism
Schools are unique work environments that offer both challenges and opportunities for employees to stay healthy. The priority of schools is educating, supporting and nurturing students to acquire and develop the cognitive, social, physical, emotional and psychological skills necessary to be successful and productive contributors to society and the world. Everything about the school environment is designed, organized and planned with the student in mind. People who work in schools – teachers, administrators, support staff – always put the needs and welfare of students first. This can result in unintentionally overlooking or neglecting the needs, health and welfare of school employees.
As public and community operated/owned organizations, schools are under constant observation and scrutiny. More than any public institution, schools are held to the highest levels of accountability. When a parent, a community member, a politician or other stakeholder feels that schools are not meeting the public’s expectations, criticism, accusation and detraction of schools follows and thrusts schools into the media spotlight and headlines. People who work in schools take this criticism personal and this creates a constant and intense level of stress.
Walk into any public school in North Carolina and ask any teacher, principal, counselor, secretary, nutrition worker, or custodian why they do what they do and 9 times out of 10 your will hear “Because of the kids.” While that is exactly the response a student, parent, school board member or community business person would want and expect to hear from their school staff, today we will focus on what is best for those school employees.

7. Creating a Culture of Health in Your School
Encourages and reinforces positive health behaviors
Enhances student health
Influences family health
Enhances community health
I want you to take what you learn from this training to consider what it would take to create a “culture of health” at a school. A school that promotes a “culture of health” has the opportunity to:
Encourage positive health behaviors of school employees
Foster greater engagement that influences personal health attitudes and choices, increases awareness of and support for student health, deepens and enhances health perspectives and actions of family members and ultimately, improves the health of the community

8. Arguments for Employee Wellness
The Health Cost/Management Argument
The Productivity Argument
The Great Place to Work Argument
Making the case for implementing a school worksite wellness program is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. In other words, a district Board member or Superintendent may be concerned about staff retention or teacher recruitment while the Human Resources or Personnel Director may be focused on managing healthcare or workers compensation claims. A principal’s biggest concern is for effective, engaged instructional staff while school support staff want a safe, pleasant work environment. Each school and school district has its own unique culture and needs from a health management perspective. Therefore, let’s look at three different arguments that provide strong support for a school worksite wellness program from an several perspectives. We will discuss the health cost/management argument, the productivity argument, and the “great place to work” argument.

9. Health Costs Follow Risks
Measured Risks
Perceived health
Life satisfaction
Stress
Systolic blood pressure
Cholesterol
Alcohol
Physical activity
Diastolic blood pressure
Safety belt use
Smoking
HDL (good) Cholesterol
Body mass index
If you are making the case for worksite wellness to a Board member, County Commissioner, Superintendent or Budget Director, the financial cost associated with employee health risks may be your most powerful talking point.
Financial costs of healthcare are directly related to measurable risk factors. When you tie various health risks of employees to the cost of healthcare for employees who carry those risks, the case for worksite wellness becomes more compelling. Any time an employee reduces her or his risk, the associated costs goes down.

10. The Productivity Argument
Impact?
Lower absenteeism
Less disability
Fewer workers’ compensation claims
Lower presenteeism
The Productivity argument for worksite wellness programs is the relationship between health status and productivity-related measures such as absenteeism, presenteeism, and disability. Presenteeism is defined as the level of on-the-job work impairment due to a health-related problem. Presenteeism is beginning to get more attention from decision-makers in regard to its negative impact on employee performance. Think of presenteeism in the same way we think of absenteeism. High presenteeism is a negative measure, not a positive one.
What are some examples of presenteeism you might see or have seen in your work experience? Were these examples a result of the effects of chronic conditions?

11. The Great Place to Work Argument
Supportive Work Environment
Protects
Supports
Empowers
Recruits and retains top talent
The last argument is the “great place to work” argument. Recruiting and retaining top quality teachers, administrators and staff is one of the greatest human resources challenges of public schools in North Carolina. Most educators will acknowledge they did not enter that field for money, power or prestige. They entered the field because they care and are passionate about helping children and young people learn, grow and succeed. The work environment is critical to how school employees are able to perform their jobs successfully and how they perceive value for their contributions from the district and community.
Principals and administrators are highly sensitive to creating a school work environment that attracts and supports the most talented teachers and staff possible. A worksite wellness program, as part of the school environment, becomes a human resource recruitment and retention strategy. Successful school districts believe creating a supportive work environment brings the best out of people, and, in turn, attracts and retains the best talent.

12. Steps to Implementing School Employee Wellness

13. Engage Leadership for Support
One of the keys to a successful worksite wellness program is building support and engagement from leaders in your school, your district, and your community. One of your first challenges as the worksite wellness leader at you school is to take the steps necessary to garner that leadership support at multiple levels. If your school leaders do not understand the benefits of and support worksite wellness, the chances of success will be greatly diminished.

14. Why Is Leadership Important?
Supportive leadership is an essential element for a sustainable program.
Leaders understand that employee health is a core value of a healthy school.
Leadership drives the establishment of a
culture of health.
Your participation in this training is evidence of the support you have from your school district leadership. Leadership support is essential for supporting a culture of health. For example, if school leaders encourage schools throughout a district to have measured walking trails or adopt healthy meeting policies or provide bike racks and access to fitness rooms, the district will be perceived by employees and the community to support a culture of health.
The strongest foundation for achieving a culture of health is leadership that establishes employee health as a core value of healthy schools. Strong leadership support is the “key that opens all doors” to creating a culture of health that cuts across school policies, benefits, management practices, work environment, and school climate.
In short, leadership drives the establishment of a culture of health.

15. What You Need From Leaders
Public acknowledgement and support
Resources
Time
Commitment to achieving goals
Follow-through
As you identify, approach and engage your leaders there are certain things you will need from them. Some of these needs are specific to certain leaders. For example, what you need from your superintendent or board will be very different from what you need from your principal or wellness champions. The important thing is that you think about what the needs are and what leader(s) can help you meet those needs.

16. Form a Wellness Committee

17. Employee Wellness Committee
2-8 members
Composed of a cross-section of employees.
Broad representation and diversity
Not solely volunteers
Enough decision-making authority to run an effective program.
Serves as ears and eyes for employee input.
Earlier we talked about the importance of gaining support from and engaging leaders and that a worksite wellness committee plays an important role in that engagement. For most worksites, the first step in planning and design of a worksite wellness program will be to develop a worksite wellness committee. A wellness committee is important for it creates a sense of ownership in the program for the employee population in our school. It also will help facilitate the various tasks that it takes to design, implement, and maintain your program. We talked about some of the skills and responsibilities of wellness committee members but here are a few reminders:
2-8 members
The committee should be composed of a cross-section of employees.
Broad representation and diversity
Don’t rely solely on volunteers to fill the committee.
Ensure the committee has enough decision-making authority at the school to run an effective program.
The committee serves as ears and eyes for direct employee input.
Once the committee has been formed, the committee should collect, analyze, and interpret the assessment data we talked about this morning so you can start designing your program.
Let’s talk about data interpretation and prioritization of needs.

18. Wellness Committee: Responsibilities
Create vision and mission for program
Conduct assessment of environment, policies, needs and interests
Identify priorities, goals and objectives
Design and implement an action plan
Deliver and manage programs and activities
Communicate and promote wellness program
Monitor and evaluate
Commit to serve .

19. Wellness Committee Resource
WorkWell NC Tools
WorkWell NC Toolkit
A guide to help you develop a worksite wellness program
WorkWell NC Turnkey Programs
Ready-to-go materials you can use for worksite wellness activities
WorkWell NC Workbooks
User-friendly workbooks to help you build a worksite wellness program

20. Assess Your School Worksite
Assessment is a critical element of a successful school worksite wellness program. Assessment provides a clear picture of the current state of your school employees’ health needs and interests. Assessment also helps you determine organizational strengths, weaknesses and gaps that influence the health and safety of employees. Assessment is the foundation for evaluation or your school wellness program.

21. What Works for a School?
Most schools can get a good snapshot of their health needs by using two assessment tools:
CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard
Employee Needs and Interest Survey
For the purposes of planning and implementing a worksite wellness program at a school, most all of the assessment data necessary can be gathered from three types of assessments. The CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard that captures organization environmental and policy data, an employee health assessment which gathers individual data and an employee interest survey that gathers individual preference data.

22. CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard
125 questions that address:
Organizational Supports
Health Behaviors
Chronic Disease
Signs/Symptoms of
Heart Attack/Stroke
Emergency Response to Heart Attack/Stroke
Occupational Health and Safety
Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
Community Resources
How many of you have used, started or completed the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard? Hard copies of the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard are available at your tables. Let’s take a look at this assessment tool and how it can be used to help design the wellness program focus and priorities.
The CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard is a basic benchmarking tool to help plan and implement evidence-based worksite wellness initiatives. The ScoreCard assesses policies and environmental supports for health that exist in a worksite. The ScoreCard is comprised of 125 “yes”/”no” questions that are divided into a variety of practices that have been initiated or maintained over the last year (12 months). They address the following areas:
Organizational Supports
Health Behaviors
Chronic Disease
Signs/Symptoms of Heart Attack/Stroke
Emergency Response to Heart Attack/Stroke
Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
Occupational Health and Safety
Community Resources
The ScoreCard can be completed the old fashion way by pencil and paper or through an online process provided and protected by the CDC. The ScoreCard is being used as the primary assessment and measurement tool for the ODHDSP and the Wellness Wins worksite wellness projects. Therefore, we want you to have a good understanding of what this tool assesses and how you can use results form the ScoreCard to inform and support you worksite wellness program and efforts. Let’s briefly review some key features.
CDC. Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. Worksite Health ScoreCard. Retrieved from:

23. CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard
Let’s use the copies of the ScoreCard from your folder to examine the instrument. The first part of the ScoreCard captures some worksite demographic information. The first section of questions is Organizational Supports. There are 18 questions that assess your worksite’s use/support in such areas as: assessment, leadership alignment, the use of incentives, communications, and infrastructure.
From there the ScoreCard include questions covering a number of health related categories such as Nutrition, Weight Management, Physical Activity, Diabetes, Tobacco Control and others.
Scoring is based on a “yes” or “no” response with each practice area having a weighted score from 1 to 3. This score represents the relative strength of the practice in relation to evidence-based research. The weighting of scoring is as follows:
1 = good
2 = better
3 = best
This weighting scale helps you identify practice areas that can have a large impact on the success of your worksite wellness program when implemented properly. Questions where you answer “No” will tell you where there may be a gap or opportunity to be addressed by your school worksite wellness program. Questions that have a maximum “Yes” score tell you what is already in place or has been done to support or promote employee and may not need health to be a priority for you wellness program at the moment. The scoring system can also be helpful as you prioritize your employee wellness efforts, activities and resources – considering whether to focus on 3 pt. items vs 1 or 2 pt. items.

24. CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard
Once you complete the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard, you can tally your scores on the worksheet “Summary Score Table.” As depicted, employers can compare their respective scores to maximum scores in each subject area. The online format will automatically generate your score and also provide a comparison score for worksites of similar size. The online format will also provide a year to year comparison of your scores to show progress/improvement.
It is important to remember that the ScoreCard provides a relatively simple means to identify a variety of foundational strategies (e.g., educational, policy, built environment, benefit design) for multiple health issues not currently in place within your school. Using multiple interventions, such as combining program and policy interventions, for a single health issue increases access and opportunity for employees to participate and are more effective than any one intervention alone.

25. Using the ScoreCard for Your School Wellness Program
Use ScoreCard as primary measurement tool
Use ScoreCard to identify gaps and opportunities
Set wellness program priorities
Repeat ScoreCard assessment annually
As we noted earlier, the NC Division of Public Health received funding from the CDC to promote and support worksite wellness in five regions across the state. One of the key strategies of this grant is to use the CDC ScoreCard to assess the health environment in worksites across the state and to use the results of those assessments to identify gaps and opportunities for improving health of employees with an emphasis on healthy eating, physical activity and diabetes prevention as a covered benefit.

26. Employee Interest Survey
Helps identify health areas of interest and concerns of employees
Useful in program design and planning
Should complement and support other assessment data
Should align with available resources
Opportunity for employee engagement
Should be confidential and anonymous
Sample survey (folder)
A school employee interest survey can capture a variety of useful data to inform the worksite wellness program. The health interests and concerns of staff can be useful in designing and planning the school worksite wellness program. The interest and needs survey should compliment other assessments and be aligned with the resources (time, money, facilities, materials) available through the school. The needs and interest survey also provides a way for employees to become engaged with the worksite wellness program and feel ownership. The survey results should be kept confidential and anonymous.
The employee interest survey is not a one time assessment. It should be administered periodically to capture input from new employees, get fresh ideas and can be used for evaluation purposes.
An employee interest survey can also include questions pertaining to health attitudes of employees and attitudes toward the wellness program. In your folder is an example of an employee interest survey with scoring scale and a sample cover letter. Take a minute to read through this material and ask questions or offer comments. As you see, this particular survey includes some focus areas included in the CDC ScoreCard and aligned with the ODHDSP project: Nutrition/Healthy Eating and Physical Activity plus Tobacco Control/Cessation. Additional topic areas can be added based on your goals, priorities and school environment.
You can use or modify this tool to capture areas and topics of interest of your employees. The results of the Interest Survey should be used in combination with your ScoreCard results and any health assessment information you are able to collect or access to give you a more complete picture and understanding of your school worksite environment and employee status and needs.

27. Plan and Design Your Program
Up to now we have spent most of our time and discussion on some of the key components of the foundation of worksite wellness. Our next topic will focus on some key aspects of planning and design of a successful school worksite wellness program.

28. Mission Statement Describes the overall purpose of the program.
Provides a framework or context for program strategies and activities.
Should provide meaning, inspiration and clarity
A next step in planning and designing the worksite wellness plan is writing a mission statement. Data collection, integration, analysis, and program prioritization provide basic information needed to write the mission statement. The mission statement is a fancy term for program purpose. A well written worksite wellness mission statement describes why the program exists, and provides a framework or context from which the program strategies and activities can be formulated. The mission statement should provide meaning and inspiration to employees and employee family members.

29. Using Assessment Data as You Plan
Integrating your assessment data will help you:
Use data to identify gaps, needs and priorities.
CDC ScoreCard
Employee interest
Make connections between the various data sets.
Create a picture of present and future.
Present - baselines
Future - goals
During the morning session we looked at various types of worksite wellness assessments and the kinds of data that could be collected from those assessments. What were some of the assessments we discussed? When a wellness committee starts developing a worksite wellness plan, it needs to gather and consider all of the various assessment data possible for it school. The Committee will also have results from the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard which will provide specific data on policies and environmental supports at the school level. There may also be aggregate health risk and behavior data from various health assessments and screening as well as employee interest survey data.
The worksite wellness committee should gather, analyze and interpret all of the available data and decide if it has all the data it needs to effectively plan for the wellness program. If additional data is needed, the committee can build collection of that data into the plan.
Together all of the these data provide a picture, a collage, of the school’s current state of health.
Now let’s look at a tool that will help integrate and interpret the data. This will help you organize the data and make it easier for you to answer key questions in the planning process.

30. Program Scope and Focus
Narrow or Broad
Shallow or Deep
Program Focus
Environmental
Policy
Education
Activities, events, programs
Coordinated or self-directed
Once all of the worksite assessments– CDC ScoreCard, Health assessment, Employee Survey - are completed and analyzed, planning and decisions about program focus, priorities and content can be made. The results of assessment, the time available to worksite wellness leaders and the committee and resources devoted for worksite wellness will determine the scope of the worksite wellness program. The scope of the program consists of two elements: Mix and Intensity.
Program mix involves the breadth of the program in terms of the number and variety of topics, issues, themes the wellness program addresses or includes.
Program intensity involves the depth of the program in terms of activities or interventions offered.
Lets’ look at an example.

31. Defining Overarching Goals and Objectives
Address the key health needs or priorities defined in the mission statement.
Describe in broad terms what is to be accomplished.
Objectives
State the expected measurable changes in behavior, attitudes, knowledge, or condition, by whom and when.
The mission statement, assessment data and SWOT analysis should be used or referenced to develop/define overarching goals that address the key health needs or priorities addressed in the mission statement. The goals describe, in broad terms, what is to be accomplished.
Objectives are precise statements that describe the changes necessary to reach an overarching goal and state the expected amount of change in behavior, attitude, knowledge, or condition to whom and by when.

32. S.M.A.R.T. Format for Writing Overarching Goals and Objectives
When writing overarching goals and objectives, use the S.M.A.R.T. framework.
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic/Relevant
T = Time-bound
When writing your goals and objectives use of the S.M.A.R.T. format can be useful. School staff are probably familiar with this tool for writing goals and objectives.
The S in the S.M.A.R.T. format stands for specific or what will specifically be accomplished.
The M stands for measurable and defines how success will be measured.
The A stands for attainable and is all about achievability and the necessary commitment it will take to reach the goal.
The R stands for realistic or relevant.
And the T stands for time-bound and ensures there is an appropriate time-frame to completion.

33. Using Incentives What do you need to understand about incentives?
Incentives might stimulate and might sustain change efforts.
Incentives can be tangible or intangible.
Incentives should be personal.
Incentives should be available to all.
We have discussed the importance of policies and benefits. When designing programs, it’s important that incentives are taken into consideration and, when appropriate, woven into your program plans to create an environment where the healthy choice is the easy choice. Incentives should be available to all employees who participate in the wellness program, as opposed to professional development or counseling, which may reach only one or a small group of employees at a time.
Incentives can get individuals to take first steps in the behavior change process or maintain healthy lifestyles.

34. Implement and Sustain Your Program
Okay, we have made the case for school worksite wellness to key audiences and stakeholders, assessed and gathered data, won support from leadership, identified policies, benefits and environmental supports for the program, organized the wellness committee and developed a plan. The next steps are to implement and sustain the program.

35. Putting the Wellness Committee to Work
Understand mission and overarching goals
At least three members with assigned roles
Identify a leader/Chairperson
Meeting frequency - calendar
Use operating guidelines for consistency
Assist in ensuring the program is the best it can be
We talked earlier about formation and role of the worksite wellness committee. The wellness committee should be involved in developing the wellness program plan. Successful implementation happens when the wellness committee understands the mission and overarching goals of the program and works collaboratively to develop operating rules and guidelines that ensure consistency and effectiveness.
There is no magic committee membership size or number. It’s advisable that at least two employees comprise the worksite wellness committee with assigned roles. However, most committees have 5 to 12 members which is large enough to make a difference and small enough to manage effectively.
Wellness committee Chairpersons could be elected or appointed by an administrator/principal at least to get the committee started.
It’s important for all committee members to understand meeting frequency and commit to this time obligation. For example, when programs are first being planned and launched, committee meetings may be weekly or bi-weekly. Once a program has been implemented, the committee should meet at least monthly. Meeting frequency depends on the depth and breadth of the program mix.
Committee members should be a diverse set of employees focused on ensuring that the worksite wellness program is the best it can be! For the vast majority of schools, the Worksite Wellness Committee will be responsible for the implementation, maintenance, and growth of its program.

36. Action Plan Action plan useful for: Includes
Wellness committee operations
Overall program planning
Program and strategy/activity implementation
Includes
Goals
Budget information
Timelines
Responsible member
Marketing and communications
Evaluation
Worksite wellness committees and leaders should use an action plan as they prepare to implement the wellness program and subsequent program activities and strategies. Developing and using an action plan helps ensure all of the necessary and important steps of implementation are addressed prior to launching or initiating an employee wellness program or activity.
A sample of an Action Plan is in your folder. Pull those out and let’s spend a couple of minutes reviewing that plan.

37. Implementation Pitfalls & Roadblocks
Don’t:
Be pushed into a fast program startup.
Put together complex plans without resources.
Overuse incentives.
Fail to act on needs and interests.
Just focus on the high risk groups.
Forget the “fun” factor.
Worksite wellness research has identified some actions or steps that should be considered when implementing a program. This is a of DON’Ts:
Be pushed into a fast program startup.
Put together complex plans without resources.
Overuse incentives.
Fail to act on needs and interests.
Just focus on the high risk group.
Forget the “fun” factor.
Let’s talk about program sustainability.

38. Communicate Effectively

39. Effective Communication – A Key to Success
Announcements
Bulletin boards
Newsletters
Staff meetings
Social media
Blogs
Others?
Think about the various communications tools and methods used in your worksite. What is missing from this list? Some methods are more appropriate and effective than others to communicate with employees about specific topics.
You know what works best in your worksite and should structure your worksite wellness communication accordingly.

40. Reaching All Employee Populations
Varied education levels
Males and females
Shift workers
Varied health literacy levels
Multi-cultural
Mistrustful and active opponents
There are sub-populations within many worksites that may be more challenging to involve in worksite wellness and/or are pose unique barriers to engagement. This can especially be a challenge when an school employee population is not large enough to be able justify the added time and expense of developing more targeted and custom communications, programs and activities for each employee population.
This is not to stereotype specific groups, but researchers have identified some common observations among worksite wellness practitioners regarding making sure to reach all populations of employees.
Evidence indicates that workers with lower education levels and lower incomes often have higher health risks and lower health status than individuals with higher education levels and higher incomes. Providing participatory incentives can be effective to engage this population of employees in worksite wellness activities.
Males (more so in manufacturing or other “blue collar” jobs) are typically :
Resistant to having a primary care provider/following recommended preventive screenings and immunizations
Resistant to participating in health assessments and/or biometric screenings
Not complying with physical activity, healthy eating, tobacco, and alcohol recommendations
Typical strategies include having wellness programs and activities available where they spend their work time and on-the-clock, which reduces access barriers. Also consider including spouses. Research shows that women tend to be the primary healthcare decision-makers in the home. Maintain balance in your program offerings and design to address interests and priorities of all employees. Interest and needs surveys are helpful for this.
Shift workers:
There may be few, if any, shift workers in the district or school. However, if there are employees with different schedules. Be aware of and sensitive to these schedule differences as the program is planned and implemented to ensure equal opportunity for participation.

41. Evaluate Your Program

42. The Value of Evaluation
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” – Ron Goetzel, PhD
Aligns your overall program goals and objectives
Starts with baselines
Measures progress over time
Measures effectiveness of specific program elements
As we mentioned during the in-person training, a common saying within the evaluation profession is, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” This is an important note since program measurement and evaluation are critical elements of a comprehensive worksite wellness program.
The value of program evaluation includes the following:
Evaluation aligns overall program goals and objectives. In other words, it helps you know if your goals and objectives are being achieved.
Contrary to what many believe, evaluation should be one of the very first steps in the process of developing a worksite wellness program. The evaluation process starts with creating baselines. Baselines established through the assessment process and subsequent measurement projects tell you where you are at present and reference points for measuring progress over time. Through these baseline measures, you are able to understand your population and develop and establish realistic goals and objectives.
Evaluation measures progress over time. Proper evaluation (based on good baselines) allows the wellness committee and leadership to measure and track progress over time. This is very important since some outcomes such as reduced health risks and increased productivity take time—usually three to five years. However, if you collect the right data, you should be able to show incremental improvements in such areas as participation, satisfaction, risk reduction, and health behaviors which will eventually lead to even greater outcomes and Return on Investment.
Evaluation measures the effectiveness of specific program elements such as special events, policy changes or implementation or communications.
A solid evaluation plan not only helps measure the effectiveness of the entire wellness program, but it should measure the impact of specific program supports (e.g., leadership support, policies, environmental supports) and/or interventions (e.g., weight management, physical activity).

43. Questions?

44. Thank you! Dave Gardner, D.A.
Worksite Wellness and Schools Coordinator
Community and Clinical Connections for Prevention and Health Branch