Behavioral Science tells us that Leaders can have a huge influence over the choices people make. The age-old adage, “As the leader goes, so go the people,” still holds true.

Just as a poorly performing leader can create an unhealthy culture that negatively affects performance, a leader, who performs well on the other hand, can evoke from people their highest level of personal performance and self-care. History provides numerous examples of this and it continues to be true today.  

Wellness Cultures is a program that works to help C-level executives and senior managers make high leverage contributions towards creating a wellness culture that leads employees to higher levels of performance.  

A wellness culture can be likened to a green house that creates an optimal environment conducive to low stress, healthy psychology, constructive expressions of anger and healthy interpersonal relationships. A wellness culture is one that brings out innovation and a healthier bottom line. During the last decade, studies verifying the high cost of an unhealthy workplace on the corporate bottom line continue to amass.  On the other hand, these same studies show that investments on wellness spending can yield high returns. 

In today’s hyper-competitive, shrinking global village, tomorrow’s market shares will belong to organizations that create a healthy workplace environment. Wellness Cultures is the program that will help organizations achieve this goal.

The Wellness Cultures program starts by forming a leadership team composed of 3-4 senior leaders from your organization and two senior Wellness Directors from Wellness Factors. Chaired by the Wellness Factors’ Wellness Director, the team meets for one hour every week for six weeks to develop the initial wellness strategy tailored for your organization. Meetings are then phased to every 2 or 3 weeks as necessary.

The primary objective of the team is to develop and execute a wellness strategy tailored to fit your organization’s culture and specific needs. Effectiveness of the strategy is measured on a quarterly and an annual basis through a health-risk appraisal. The appraisal measures the savings realized as indicated by a reduction in absenteeism, short or long term disability, unhealthy stress-related behaviors, and sickness.

To fast-track the entire process, the Wellness Director uses a boiler-plate wellness program that is based on the research of over 100 wellness programs that provides the foundation for a gold seal wellness initiative used by leading organizations. The team reviews each section of the boiler-plate program to determine its applicability to your organization and implement adjustments that will optimize the program to meet your organization’s unique needs.   The commitment from each leadership team member is approximately two hours per week. 

To learn more about how Wellness Cultures can enhance the health of your organization, please contact a Wellness Factors’ representative.