15+ Employee wellness programs that actually engage!
Creating a happy and healthy workplace environment is crucial for supporting your team’s wellbeing – it also helps them to work more productively!
Many employee wellbeing programs are available, but choosing the right ones will engage your teams and improve their overall wellness.
These workplace programs include stress management workshops, virtual walkathons, hydration challenges, and more.
Let’s take a look at what to look for in a wellness program and the top 15 options available.
What are the key elements of a comprehensive wellness at work program?
Wellness at work programs are about creating an environment that supports the overall wellbeing of your team members.
As you can imagine, Teamupp has given a lot of thought to the specific subject… So, here are the key elements of a quality wellness program to look for:
1. Physical Wellness
This is all about helping your team stay active and healthy. Think of gym memberships, group yoga classes at work, or walking challenges. Even simple activities like walking around the office can make a difference in how your team feels every day.
2. Mental Health Support
Your team’s mental health is just as important as their physical health.
So, consider including counselling, stress management workshops, or mindfulness apps in your employee wellness programs.
3. Preventive Health Programs
This can be as simple as sponsoring your team to get the flu shot or health screenings. You can even sponsor them for wellness check-ups. It’s all about catching possible health issues early before they become big problems.
4. Health Education
It may sound cliché, but knowledge is indeed power. Equipping your team members with knowledge about their health can go a long way to making them healthier. You can organise regular health workshops or send them information on topics like healthy eating or managing stress. This can help your team to make smarter and healthier choices in their day-to-day lives.
5. Work-Life Balance
You can also help your employees achieve a better work-life balance. It might be as simple as giving them flexible work hours or allowing remote work a few days a week.
This can help them to juggle their work and personal life better. You can even share simple tools like time management apps with them.
Our Top 15 Best employee wellness programs
Don’t fret. Planning an employee wellness program in the workplace doesn’t have to be difficult.
To make things easier for you, we’ve included different wellness at work programs covering different aspects of health, including physical, mental, emotional, and even financial wellbeing.
1. Onsite Fitness Centres
Creating an onsite gym can be a huge benefit for your team as it helps them save time and money. This is one of the wellness programs for corporates that can drastically improve your team’s activity levels.
How to Implement it: You can convert a room or space in your office into a gym. Add equipment like treadmills, yoga mats, dumbells, and stationary bicycles. You can even offer personal training sessions or fitness classes.
Benefits: Your team will become more physically active, which will help them reduce stress and improve their mood as well as their energy. With this program, you’ll likely see fewer sick days and more engaged employees.
Cost: High cost. Initial setup for equipment and ongoing maintenance can be expensive.
2. Virtual Fitness Classes
This is a popular employee wellness program for companies with remote employees. So, if your team works remotely, virtual fitness classes will be a big hit for them. These classes offer flexibility and convenience for all employees working from home.
How It Works: You can partner with fitness instructors or choose platforms that provide live or recorded classes. Your team can join from anywhere.
Benefits: Irrespective of your teams’ fitness levels and interests, they’re sure to find a fitness class that suits them. From yoga to HIIT, there’s so much to choose from in this program. The core benefit is that they promote physical and mental wellbeing.
Cost: Low to moderate, depending on the resources you use.
Resources & Tools: YouTube videos Fitness Apps
3. Comprehensive Wellness Solution
If cost is a major concern in setting up wellness at work programs, consider the Teamupp app.
You can engage your employees through step challenges, quizzes, video and photo challenges, and a lot more. Teamupp has a user-friendly interface and you can easily organise wellness activities to keep your teams active and motivated.
How It Works: All you have to do is download the app from the app store and enter your company code to access the tools. You can join or create a team and challenge your employees. Your employees can track progress through the app and earn rewards as they meet milestones.
The Teamupp app can promote a sense of friendly competition and team spirit in your workplace while boosting your teams’ physical health.
Cost: Starting from just £1 per employee, depending on the plan chosen.
4. Mental Health Workshops
As mentioned earlier, your team’s mental health is just as important as their physical health. Solid employee health and wellness programs should help your teams physically and mentally. You can help your team develop better mental health by organising workshops, enabling them to manage stress and anxiety.
How It Works: Organise workshops and hire professionals to run them. These workshops can focus on stress management, emotional intelligence, or mindfulness.
Why It Matters: Your employees will learn practical skills to manage their stress levels and improve their mental clarity. It’s a win-win for you and your team, as it can lead to higher productivity and happier staff members.
Cost: Moderate to high. It can cost more if you’re including access to therapy.
5. Healthy Eating Programs
We are what we eat, right ? Encouraging your teams to build healthier eating habits directly influences their nutrition and overall happiness. This has a major impact on their energy levels which could help them to work productively. Education on nutrition is a key part of the best employee wellness programs.
How to Do It: You can organise cooking classes or provide healthy snacks at work. You can even partner with local meal preparation services to deliver healthy meals to your team members. You could also offer classes on balanced diets to help your teams find an approach that works best for them.
Benefits: Healthy eating reduces the risk of chronic diseases and improves immunity. You may notice your teams have more energy and take fewer sick days when you encourage them to eat healthier.
Cost: Moderate to high, depending on the types of classes and how often you hold them. The cost also depends on whether you decide to use meal prep services and include healthy snacks at work.
6. Hydration Challenges
Many people often forget to drink enough water throughout the day which has a bigger negative impact on health than some may realise.
Encouraging your teams to drink more water is a simple but incredibly effective way to help them feel more energised. Hosting hydration challenges is one way to get your staff to drink more water.
How It Works: Sign up on a wellness app and set daily water intake goals for your team. Track their progress and reward those who meet their targets as motivation.
Benefits: Proper hydration has been found to improve concentration, energy levels, and overall health.
Cost: Free to moderate depending on whether you provide teams with company-branded water bottles. You can encourage staff to bring their own water bottles which would make this a free challenge.
7. Preventive Health Screening Programs
You can help save the lives of your team members by organising preventive health screenings. Early detection of health issues is important and the best way to achieve this is through regular screening.
How to Do It: You can partner with healthcare providers to offer annual check-ups, blood pressure monitoring, and more to keep your teams healthy.
Advantages: These screenings will promote health awareness among your team members. They may also help your organisation cut down on healthcare costs.
Cost: Moderate as the actual cost depends on the frequency and type of screenings you offer.
8. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
EAP offers confidential support for both personal and professional challenges. For instance, you can run different EAPs to address financial, emotional, or legal issues to equip your teams to deal with them.
How to Do It: Get in touch with an EAP provider to offer these services to your teams.
Benefits: This employee wellness program will improve your employees’ wellbeing, reduce absenteeism, and improve productivity.
Cost: Generally moderate, but the actual cost depends on the size of your organisation and the scope of services you want to provide. Costs are often charged per employee per month.
Interested in implementing a workplace wellness program?
9. Financial Wellness Program
This program can help your teams better understand money management, including financial planning, saving, and budgeting.
How It Works: You can organise workshops and invite financial experts. You can also give your team members access to budgeting resources or tools.
Benefits: Your team will feel more secure financially which can reduce their stress.
Cost: Moderate – it can include financial planning services or workshops.
Resources: Financial planning apps like Mint
10. Active Commuting Incentives
This program encourages your team members to bike, walk, or take public transport to work instead of driving. These are healthy, eco-friendly choices that have positive effects on the environment. It also encourages your teams to be more active.
How To Do It: Give incentives to your team to encourage them to participate. Wellness program examples for commuting incentives could include subsidised transport passes or bike storage at work.
Benefits: It reduces carbon footprint and improves your teams’ physical activity.
Cost: Low to moderate cost. The actual cost will only cover the incentives.
11. Smoking Cessation Support Programs
Helping your employees who smoke to quit is one of the less obvious but effective ways to support their wellness. Encouraging smokers in your teams to quit or at least reduce the amount they smoke can prevent all sorts of potential health problems. Not to mention, they’ll be spending less time on smoke breaks and more time working productively. It’s what we call a win-win!
How to Offer Support: Health promotion examples to help staff quit smoking include partnering with clinics that offer cessation programs, counselling or nicotine replacement therapies.
Benefits: This program can reduce health risks to your team and healthcare costs for the company. It also creates a healthier work environment for everybody.
Cost: Moderate – the cost depends on the provider you partner with.
Resources: Smoking cessation apps like Pelago Health
12. Volunteer Programs
Your work wellness programs can also be combined with your CSR initiatives to give back to the community. This can improve your employees’ morale and help your organisation to build a positive company image.
What to Do: Organise volunteer days where your team participates in community activities like clearing rubbish in parks or beaches. You can also create ongoing charity projects to keep your team engaged.
Benefits: It helps strengthen team spirit which can improve job satisfaction.
Cost: Low. Other than transport, time is the only real cost for volunteer programs.
13. Sleep Health Programs
Sleep is vital for general health but many people struggle to sleep. You can organise sleep wellness programs in the workplace to help your team learn how to improve their sleep quality. You may also learn a thing or two as well!
How It Works: Organise sleep hygiene workshops or webinars for your team and allow access to sleep-tracking apps.
Cost Estimate: Low to moderate, depending on the tools and sleep programs you choose.
Resources & Tools: You can consider sleep tracking apps like Sleep Cycle or wearables like Fitbit. You can also consider partnering with sleep specialists to help your team.
14. Meal Planning Programs
Nutrition has a big role to play in employees’ energy levels and cognitive function. Organising a nutrition and meal planning program can help your team members to make healthier food choices.
How to Implement: You can partner with dietitians to offer one-on-one consultations to your team. You can also offer them access to healthy meal delivery services or even cooking classes. Sharing educational resources on balanced diets and meal planning is also a great idea.
Cost Estimates: It depends on the extent of services you want to provide. You can choose free online resources or opt for paid consultations, apps, and meal prep services.
Resources & Tools: Check out calorie-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal to help teams become more aware of their nutrition. You can also invest in healthy recipe books or nutrition workshops.
15. Ergonomic Workspace Assessment Programs
You can prevent discomfort and long-term health issues by organising ergonomic workspace assessment programs. Creating an ergonomic office can help teams work more comfortably and focus better.
How It Works: Conduct regular ergonomic assessments for both your in-office and remote workers and provide them with ergonomic furniture such as adjustable chairs, ergonomic mice, and standing desks. You can also offer training on proper posture and how they can adjust their workstation for better posture.
Cost Estimate: Moderate to high cost. This depends on how much you decide to spend on ergonomic office equipment and assessment programs.
There you have it – our top employee wellness programs that improve the wellbeing of your staff.
Hopefully, you’re feeling more confident about the benefits of a wellness program and how it can positively impact your team’s health and your company.
Check out our Teamupp app to host fun fitness challenges and improve your team’s wellbeing. Start with any of these initiatives to create a healthier and more engaged workforce.
Interested in implementing a workplace wellness program?
