Wellness
Communication
Connecting Employees to Wellness Resources
For self-managing their health and well-being, employees have resources through their benefits. For example, depending on their health plan, they may have access to:
- Full coverage for preventive care services and prescriptions
- Behavioral health benefits
- Support for managing chronic conditions
- Health advocates
- Nurse lines and telemedicine
- Libraries of healthcare information
- Fitness club membership discounts
- 100%-covered tobacco-cessation programs
- Pre- and post-natal care programs
- Online tools and resources
Dental and vision care plans also offer preventive care services covered in full or for a small copay; and EAPs feature a wealth of personalized resources generally available to all employees and family members. Not to be overlooked are the benefits of financial wellness with tools and resources typically available through a 401(k) plan.
Communicating Wellness
In many cases, when employers retain a wellness program through a HIPAA-compliant vendor, the promoting messages and communications emphasize its wellness services, activities, and incentives. Necessary and important to drive up participation, of course; but employers have an opportunity to leverage other wellness-supporting benefits and resources available through their plans (such as those listed above).
Communication Opportunity
The opportunity is to integrate those other wellness services in a broader strategic communication campaign during the year. For example, monthly or biweekly newsletters, videos, flyers, etc. each promoting a wellness benefit or resource can expand the wellness program communication for better awareness of all the employer’s benefits. Topics can include preventive care, EAP, online medical plan tools, etc.
A year-round communication approach will not overload employees with a lot of information at one time while keeping a selection of self-managing wellness resources in front of them while creating a library for your portal.
Resource Guide for New Hire Benefits Communications
Download this Wellness Program and Incentives Promotion Communication Resource Guide for ideas, samples, and services. Also, this 4-minute video offers some ideas for related topics that can be viewed at home on computers or mobile devices.
Download the Wellness Communication Guide for ideas, samples, and tips.