If you’re at all like us, you don’t want your wellness program to be a flop. You put time, money and energy into your employees’ health, so why not strive for success?!

Here are a few common reasons that wellness programs can fail.

HINT: Avoid doing these in your employee wellness program!

Hopefully you’ve been following along with our garden project this summer. If not, that’s okay. It’s not too late to catch up!

We just want to remind you of the awesome fact that:

You can build a community garden at your workplace!

It might sound daunting, but it’s totally possible. We have the tips and instructions you need to get started in our workplace garden toolkit.

If you haven’t experienced the magic of TED talks, you’re really missing out. There's no better way to start your day than with a cup of coffee and an inspiring TED talk. TED — which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design — features "ideas worth spreading." The speaker series launched in 1984, and there are now more than 2,000 TED talks available. The talks are done all over the world by great minds with innovative ideas.

Hopefully you’ve heard by now that we believe everyone is healthy. Yes, everyone. All of you and all of your employees have some healthy habits in your lives.

If you’re the wellness coordinator at your company, you know how difficult the job can be. There are a variety of things to focus on from preparation to evaluation and everything in between.

Doing these seven things every day will help you manage the crazy tasks thrown at you as a wellness coordinator. 

Not every day is the same, but they all can be healthy. Individual healthy habits are what stack up to a healthy lifestyle. Find out which healthy habits you enjoy, and plug those in to your workday.

Here’s what our ideal healthy workday would look like. Obviously feel free to adjust to your own personal schedule, but use this as a guide to fit healthy habits into your regular work schedule.

You might have noticed the wellness challenge we participated in last month. Challenges like our #IAmHealthy 30-day Challenge are an excellent way to spice up your wellness program.

Challenges are a great wellness activity because:

• They can help you climb out of a rut in your program
• They can be used to celebrate a special event or milestone
• They provide some momentum after your program launch
• They instill a sense of friendly competition which increases engagement

Depending on your company culture, there are a million different challenges you can integrate into your corporate wellness program.

We are already halfway through the year. Can you believe it?! Time sure does fly.

This time of year is perfect to do some evaluation of your wellness program. It’s important to keep an eye on your program to make sure things are going well. Checking up on the program can also help you:

• Gauge interest
• Measure participation and engagement
• Come up with new ideas
• Simplify your program (if need be)
• Identify any hot-button issues

If we’re being honest, wellness—and life—can get pretty complicated. The concept is pretty simple, but with the connectedness of our world today, it can quickly spiral out of control.

Wellness portals have emerged as an excellent tool for tracking progress and managing incentives. Now that we have easy-to-use fitness trackers and smartphone apps, though, almost everything can be recorded.

We can gather real-time health information with little to no effort, which means you can tap into all of that information as you plan your wellness program. It’s so easy to build in every possible metric to your program.

Everyone does the job differently, and that’s just fine. If you’re going to manage your company’s wellness program well, though, it’ll help to work on these ten characteristics.

1. Persuasive

Wellness can be tricky because it essentially involves selling something to your coworkers. It’s different, though, because you aren’t selling a product or service. You’re selling a concept. And, you have to make that concept applicable and appealing to employees at all levels of your company.