Adam,

Reporting can take many forms and this is largely dependant on the organisation's goals (ie. why they have implemented a wellness program).

In order to determine the success of a wellness program you need to be able to quantify things such as participation, health risk factors, change over the course of the program, etc.

When establishing a wellness program you need to set up measurable outcomes. For example, take a simple goal such as a company wanting to reduce sick days as a result of stress. We first need to determine how many are occurring, assess the stress of staff, assess related areas such as work hours, exercise levels, blood pressure, and other risk factors.

We want to take these measures at the start, during and the end of the program to determine the outcomes and then further fine tune the program based on the follow up findings.

As you said, these reports should not be a generic 'mail merge' but need to be customised for your organisations needs. Yes, this does make it more time consuming, but it also means it will be more effective.

In addition to this there is the 'report' for each individual participant of the program. This is very important in allowing each participant to assess their individual changes relevant to their own goals.

Ben

Ben,

Can you explain what you mean by reporting? Is this to the individual or the company as a whole? I know it is easy to pull figures out if needed so how do you: 1) get the most relevant and reliable figures for each company?, and 2) present them? I guess knowing that the reporting is individualised and not a mail merge print out would help me know we are getting value.

Cheers

A

LiveStrong,

This is an interesting comment for a number of reasons. There are becoming more and more companies offering corporate wellness services. I think this is largely driven by the increased demand for these services as a result of things such as staff shortages and more staff health.

As per any service, there is varying quality. I think this is largely due to the business structures that different companies use. There are still many organisations who use single staff members to provide services in all aspects of wellness. I can only comment on how we run things, and that our background all about a team approach where the exercise physiologist works with the dietician who works with the psychologist (etc) to get the best specialist results.

Many organisations are still using personal trainers to run their corporation's wellness program. While personal trainers definitely have a role in health and fitness, I much prefer a structure where specialist tertiary qualified staff work in their specialist area to get the most for an individual's wellness.

As you point out, reporting is also an interesting area that can easily be underdone. Reporting on program results and changes is crucial in determining the success of the program and the future direction of the program.

I think there are many things that set a good corporate wellness provider apart from one that is second-rate. To me quality control is a vital aspect. It is crucial in the running a successful wellness program. This includes the systems and staff development, as well as continually reviewing your processes to improve the service that is being provided.

I think this discussion is as long as a piece of string, it can just keep on going.

Ben

Is it just me, or are there too many so called "Corporate Health Companies" in Australia?

I would like to know how many of them are actually operating with qualified staff, and utilising quality management and reporting processes?

We have used a couple of different providers and the quality varied greatly!

What sets a good corporate health company apart from a second-rate one?