Biometric screenings are one of the most interactive component in an employee wellness program. When done right they are a great opportunity to encourage healthier lifestyles. So it's important you make the most of that opportunity by hosting an awesome screening event. 

But we all know planning any large employee event, and especially a biometric screening event, can be stress inducing.

That’s why we’ve put together a guide of things to keep in mind as you plan your most successful biometric screening event yet. Be sure to check out the guide, share it with your wellness team, and put the ideas into action!

We talk about biometric screenings all the time, but we know it can get confusing—especially when big words like ‘biometric’ are involved.

What is a biometric screening?

To make it a bit more simple, a biometric screening is essentially a quick health exam. It’s used to offer insight into your employees' overall health. 

We strive for positivity in all of our health and wellness events. We want to give your employees an experience that’s inspiring, memorable and not at all scary.

There are a few main reasons we outright focus on positivity at our events.

Our health professionals are really the experts when it comes to our events. This network of qualified individuals includes the people you see at your events. They know what works, what doesn’t work and what you need to keep in mind.

We talked to a couple different Event Coordinators and our Director of Nursing, and the general consensus was this…you guys rock. Overall, everyone agreed that events run pretty smoothly for the most part.

We did manage to squeeze a few tips out of them. Keep these things in mind to help you and help us in the event planning process.

If you have a wellness program, you should definitely have regular biometric screenings. A staple event at these screenings is a blood test to measure things like cholesterol, glucose and triglycerides. These metrics give employees a baseline to help motivate them toward healthy behaviors. 

If you choose to do an onsite screening event, there are a few different ways to get a blood sample for these types of tests. You can draw blood with a fingerstick, or a venipuncture blood draw.

It’s important to look at the two options carefully and decide which works best for your company. You might want to consider what your employees wanted from wellness when you sought feedback from them (and you should’ve sought feedback!).

Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s just fine. But, when it comes to biometric screenings, why not learn from other people’s mistakes? That way, you can save your precious mistakes for something smaller…like opting for the cheapest (and worst-tasting) coffee for the break room.

Mistake 1: Not Screening Regularly

Regular screenings are what help you to catch health trends among your employees. If you don’t offer health screenings regularly, you won’t be able to measure improvements or stop declines in their tracks. Even though we’d love to see you every single month, we aren’t saying you need screenings quite that often. Aim for one health screening each year so your employees have time to make some adjustments and really see the outcomes of their efforts.

There are so many health conditions and diseases to worry about these days that the names can get lost in the shuffle. We want to point out one you may or may not have heard of. It’s called metabolic syndrome. This health condition is different than others because you absolutely have the power to rid yourself and your workplace of it.

So you might be asking, what exactly is metabolic syndrome?

The syndrome is basically a cluster of conditions that—when found together—greatly increase your risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The conditions are increased blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels.

So you’ve heard all the recent talk about cholesterol, but what does it really mean? Cholesterol can affect your health on a number of levels, but it’s important to learn what cholesterol is, how it affects your body, and what you can do about it. Cholesterol can help to predict the health of your employees, and is a signifier of a lot of potential health problems, so allow us to explain.

With the digital world slowly taking over our lives, it’s about time biometric screenings got on board. As with any event that deals with private health information, it’s important to make the necessary security measures, which puts us a little behind the times. But, watch out world—TotalWellness has tablets!

We’ve recently introduced the option of collecting data digitally at our onsite screening events. To ease any concern that might come with this new option, we’re here to lay out the details of tablet data collection at biometric screening events.

So you want to help your employees improve their health? Great. We do too!

Building a wellness program to improve the health of your workforce can be an excellent investment in your employees, and ultimately the productivity and bottom line of your company. In order to build a sustainable employee wellness program, you’re going to need to get a baseline level of where your company is at health-wise.