One of the most important parts of starting a wellness program is determining how you will inspire employees to participate and begin the journey towards a healthier lifestyle. Incentives are excellent motivators to help get employees started and keep them on the right track. They also help to add some extra fun to make achieving wellness seem less intimidating.

To get employees to take the plunge into their new wellness program, you will need to craft an incentive plan that will positively impact employee participation as well as spark some enthusiasm too. Employees that are excited about their wellness program and the perks that come with it will be more likely to work towards a healthier lifestyle, and as a result, you can expect a positive ROI.

Incentives are a great way to increase employee participation, motivation, and engagement, but which incentives will be right for you and your employees?

Wellness is a broad term that can be applied in several different ways. It can mean something a little different to everyone. When hearing the word "wellness," some might immediately think of fitness, while others may think of nutrition or diet. While eating and exercise are two vital factors in wellness, they do not account for all factors attributed to holistic wellness.

Your company is missing an opportunity if your wellness program is only focusing on physical wellbeing. Wellness programs should look at the full continuum of mental, emotional, and physical elements of an employee to improve corporate wellness. An excellent way to do this is by supporting holistic employee wellbeing.

Sometimes you may wonder if nutrition facts are even written in English. If mathematics or data analysis were not exactly your strong suits in academics, nutrition facts can definitely look like a foreign language.

If you are trying to eat right and get in your recommended doses of nutrients a day, nutrition facts are extremely helpful tools to assist you while shopping or preparing meals. Here’s how you can master decoding those intimidating labels:

Maybe the idea of a health fair doesn’t exactly leave your employees squirming at their desks with anticipation.

However, the idea of a workday full of helpful education, free resources, and fun certainly will!

An Employee Wellness Day is a spin on a traditional health fair, and your company will reap benefits from hosting one. This is an interactive and fun event that should be all about your employees and creating a culture of wellness.

Hosting an Employee Wellness Day is guaranteed to inspire, educate, and engage employees. This type of event will give your employees a much-needed break–and it’s a great way to start off the New Year. There are many ways to revamp an old-school health fair and personalize it for your employees.

Here are just some of the many benefits your company will receive from hosting an Employee Wellness Day and tips to help you make it an incredible experience:

Much like living a healthy lifestyle, a wellness program is never a finished project. It takes dedication and ongoing commitment to keep your program thriving. There are always areas for improvement and opportunity. A wellness program should adjust over time to continually complement employees’ needs, changes, and successes.

As an HR professional, you have a strong voice in your company’s wellness program. You have the power to strengthen and implement positive change in your employees’ journey towards a healthier lifestyle. Assessing your wellness program identifies any areas of weakness and opens up room for improvement. Be sure to ask these five essential questions to improve your wellness program:

With 40-hour work weeks, raising a family, and trying to maintain a decent social life, it can seem like there is no time for wellness. Even 30 minutes of cardio a day looks completely impossible, much less cooking a healthy dinner after a long day.

The truth is that you are always going to be busy, and living a healthy lifestyle can be challenging. However, it is also true that healthy “me time” should be a priority in your life if you wish to stay mentally and physically healthy. Here are some simple ways to make sure wellness is a part of your day:

Trust us, you want your employees to be healthy. Having a healthy workforce reaps benefits that you may not even realize. Numerous companies have started to discover the link between employee wellness and employee work performance—which is why creating an employee wellness program is on the rise and becoming the forefront of company culture.   

Wellness programs are an effective way to improve employees’ mental, physical, and emotional health, which in turn will fundamentally contribute to a company’s success. When an organization decides to implement an employee wellness program, they are taking proactive steps to improve productivity, promote culture, and improve employee retention and recruitment. Here’s how healthy employees give companies a competitive edge:   

Living a healthy lifestyle is more than just your diet and exercise routine. A healthy lifestyle also includes a healthy mind. There are many ways to achieve a healthy mindset, and one of the easiest ways to do so is by identifying what you are grateful for.

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful and the readiness to show appreciation for goodness—and it comes with a lot of perks. Gratitude expands your happiness and can transform your way of thinking. Utilizing this thankfulness can lift you out of the slumps and help you (and your employees) make the best out of any situation you may be facing.

Seriously, we’ve said it once and we’ll say it a thousand more times if we have to.

Don’t come to work sick.

If you’re not feeling well, and you force yourself into the office, you’re setting yourself up for a bad day.

• You won’t recover as well or as quickly as if you’d stayed home.
• You won’t be very productive in the office anyways.
• You will be very difficult to work with.
• You will likely infect your coworkers and ignite an office outbreak.

A healthy life is ultimately built up of small healthy choices that you make all day long. As your workday drags on, though, it can be really tough to keep making those healthy choices.

You can set yourself up for success by starting your day with a healthy morning. If you adopt some healthy habits right from the get-go, you’ll be more likely to build on that momentum—which means you’ll be more likely to make healthy choices all day long.

Here are a few steps you can take for a healthy morning. Feel free to move them around, or adjust them to your morning schedule. In the end, your health is about you and the habits you can fit into your daily routine.