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Framework for the NB workplace wellness community of practice outlines a comprehensive approach For the past year and a ½ members have been sharing resources, stories, learning and development opportunities, as well as recognizing and celebrating each others success all with the intention of creating and sustaining healthy workplaces within New Brunswick, together. Feedback from COP has been clear that members want more information about how to enable and support employee wellness practices and a safe work environment in pursuit of a healthy workplace culture within our organizations. 2
In response to your feedback we’ve created a Workplace Wellness Roadmap to help New Brunswick workplaces adopt a common planning approach based on the comprehensive framework. We have arranged the roadmap in order of the steps involved in a planning cycle. A model that includes steps is useful in identifying and describing each phase of what is in practice a dynamic, fluid, and evolving process. Each step continues throughout the process, as new experience and insights may lead to changes and enhancements. Also, each step is anticipated in previous steps — for example, decisions early in the process are made with some thoughts about later steps already in mind. The roadmap is intended to be adaptable to assist any organization at any phase in the process of developing and sustaining a wellness culture. The presentation will briefly describe each component of the roadmap and share the next steps of the journey for our community of practice. 3
Preparing for the change ahead applies to organizations that are planning workplace wellness activities for the first time as well organizations that are enhancing existing initiatives. Using change strategies will assist all parts of your organization to successfully transition from the current to future state and transform your culture in the process. Organizations don’t change, people do. A change management process must engage all stakeholders and support imbedding wellness into the organization. So focusing on the new change at the start of your planning and continuing to help people adapt to the change until it becomes part of your culture means you will have a 75% chance of success. In comparison, if you do not plan for and address the change ahead your initiatives will only have a 17% chance of success. To begin, you need to determine the necessary steps to help your people and your organization move through three phases from creating the climate for change to engaging and enabling change and finally implementing and sustaining the change. Your strategies could be simple or complex as you move from ‘how we do things now’ and through the transition toward the ‘new way we do things’. For example; one approach could include a champion meeting and talking to staff in person about the change ahead, staff participating in working groups, getting feedback directly from staff in focus groups and celebrating your successes with a walk event for all staff another approach could include using formal memos or videos messages to 4
explain why the changed is needed, conducting staff surveys to obtain information and feedback and celebrating a successful transition with a formal recognition event. Both approaches will involve your employees at all phases and will help you achieve results. How you approach your change plan depends on your capacity and the resources available to you. Leading and managing change is an important part of the roadmap toward effective and sustainable workplace wellness. If you are interested in exploring further how you can facilitate change, there is a large amount of information, tools, and resources available from credible sources such as John P Kotter and Prosci. All of this information is transferrable to your wellness journey. As well, the Graham Lowe Group has many resources on creating healthy organizations using change strategies. Links to this information will be available on the website for the Community of Practice as part of the Roadmap when posted. 4
In order to begin the process of workplace wellness planning, it is important that all levels of the organization support the concept. Key organizational “players” who need to support the program are: senior management/owners; unions, employee associations; employees; other key stakeholders, such as occupational health and safety, human resources, employee benefits, or training and development departments. The goal is to gain enough support to establish a workplace committee, to undertake a situational assessment and to develop a program plan. The situational assessment provides a clearer picture of the organizational and employee needs and interests and will inform the planning and decision making. Once the information is gathered and a plan is developed, re-affirm management support. Obtaining support twice will ensure the efforts are maintained and sustained. To ensure the longevity and success of your program, you must show leaders a clear and compelling connection between the health of your employees and your company’s overall business goals. Profitability is an extremely important goal of any business, and it can be tied directly to employee health because “people produce profit.” While profitability is always a core business objective, it is often not the sole objective. Your 5
company may offer wellness and other benefits to employees simply because it is the right thing to do. It may be helpful to present these arguments for the workplace wellness program to middle managers, who spend more time interacting directly with employees, so they understand that employee health is a goal in its own right. These non-monetary objectives can be aligned with and incorporated into core business objectives by adding specific goals about employee health into the organization’s overall mission and vision statements. Often, obtaining management and labour support begins with the business case. Understanding the financial and human ‘costs of doing nothing’ to support employee well-being is essential to helping organizations develop an action plan for improving employee well- being, and in turn, the business’ bottom line. Developing a business case is one way to urge the organization to create a workplace wellness plan. A business case can include the benefits to management and statistics related to benefits and costs, due diligence and legal requirements, and reasons why it will benefit employees. Often, examples from organizations with successful programs are also given. When creating a business case, organizations can use a combination of pre-existing research and the organization’s own figures, such as injury, disability and turnover rates, drug usage and absenteeism, engagement and job satisfaction. Also the organization should consider the organizational culture of the workplace, specifically the policies and procedures that support or hinder employee well-being. Creating linkages between the research that has already been done and the organizational data demonstrates the benefits to promoting wellness in the workplace. Organizations should set aside enough time to make a strong case, as gathering the necessary data can be time intensive. References: https://playbook.heart.org/index.php/connect-programs-and-policies-to-business- goals/ http://wmhp.cmhaontario.ca/comprehensive-workplace-health-promotion-affecting- mental-health-in-the-workplace 5
Creating an employee -led workplace committee is an important step in planning and implementing a workplace wellness program. This could be the formation of a new committee within the organization or it could be a sub-committee of an already established committee structure such as workplace joint health and safety committees. Healthy workplace committees lead to higher employee engagement, which in turn improves productivity and loyalty to the organization. Engagement can be heightened in many ways, such as by involving the whole staff in decision-making, communicating the management’s vision for the future and by creating time for positive social interactions between staff. Members of the committee should be representatives of a number of stakeholders in the organization, such as front-line workers, senior management, union representatives and occupational health and safety representatives. When developing programming focused on employee well-being, bring in interested and available members from across the organization. It is important to value and recognize employees with and without expertise in wellness. Further, as many employees as possible should be made aware of and given an opportunity to be involved with the program planning process. With the committee in place, involving them in establishing a clear vision and plan for your workplace wellness program will help you develop and guide the program, and will help your employees understand why you are implementing the program. To start, it is important to develop a workplace wellness mission and vision statement for your 6
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