Assessing Employee Needs to Enhance a Workplace Wellness Program

Background: Workplace wellness programs are increasingly prevalent, but their designs vary dramatically. While successful programs differ, those that are coordinated, comprehensive, and planned intentionally to address specific workplace needs have been found most beneficial. Objective: This project assessed the perceived health status and wellness needs of employees at one company to determine whether its workplace wellness program could be enhanced. Methods: This project focused on one site of a large, multi-state company. A retrospective review of data from an employees’ health and wellness survey was performed. Univariate and bivariate statistics were used to analyze the relationships among employee characteristics and perceived health status and wellness needs. Program utilization was also reviewed, and this information was used to develop recommendations for future wellness programming. Results: Survey respondents reported good health, with 61% of employees rating their physical health as very good or excellent. Men reported excellent health more often than women (28% versus 19%), and front-line staff ranked their health as excellent more often than management (25% versus 7%). Top wellness needs included exercise (41%), weight loss (28%) and stress reduction (24%). Despite respondents’ reported health needs and utilization of services—with nearly one-third being seen by the wellness nurse for physical and/or emotional complaints—historical utilization of wellness programs was low, with an average of 14.1 surveyed employees per session. Conclusions: Surveyed employees perceived their overall health as good; however, they expressed specific wellness needs that could improve their physical and mental health. Although historical program offerings aligned with many of these needs, they were underutilized. Further research is needed to understand this discrepancy and improve program participation in the future