INSIGHTs & INTUITION

What wellness programs for employees have been the most successful for your organization?

At Gate City Bank, we recently added a free telemedicine program as part of our health insurance package. Telemedicine gives employees and their families 24/7 access to a doctor through the convenience of their smartphone for a voice or video consult for non-emergency health needs.

In addition, the program offers online health resources, a nurse hotline and personal health advocates. The health advocates can help clarify benefits, explain medical bills, answer medical questions and more.

This first year with our telemedicine program has been successful, as we’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from our employees.

At Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, wellness programs and apps have been important in helping our members live healthier lives. We found that the most successful programs and apps are those that send “intelligent nudges” based on actionable data, specific to a member’s health needs. For example, if an individual has been sedentary for x-amount of time, or if an individual is scheduled to take an online class, a reminder is provided.

One particular program or app may not work for all individuals. Making the technology accessible at all times and offering a variety of options based on user preference is critical.

Medical experts from Altru’s Weight Management Program including a board-certified specialist in sports dietetics and an American Council on Exercise-certified medical exercise specialist.

In addition, a family nurse practitioner designed a 12-week wellness challenge for Altru Health System employees that ran from July through September of this year.

The challenge’s objectives were to create a positive culture of wellness and expose staff to resources for developing healthy lifestyle habits, all while having fun. Some 520 employees participated, of whom 73 percent were satisfied or very satisfied with the challenge and 62 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the challenge helped them develop healthier lifestyle habits.

Choice Financial believes that healthy living requires matching to each of our individual lifestyles. We offer a Wellness Reimbursement Program that pays team members for choosing the healthy living habits that suit them. Gym club memberships, personal trainers, bikes and even kayaks are just some of the common items that team members purchase with their funds. #PeopleFirst!

When it comes to wellness, we focus on simple initiatives that build toward a healthier lifestyle. One thing that was easy to execute was providing nice tumblers to all employees, each tumbler wrapped with messaging and encouragement to drink more water.

We provide these tumblers as part of our new employee onboarding as well, and it’s amazing how much “drinking water” now is being talked about and encouraged within our culture.

Another successful program has been fresh fruit. We work with local grocery stores to deliver fresh fruit weekly to most of our locations. It’s a simple investment we believe helps employees make healthier snacking choices, which in turn helps develop easy and sustainable habits.