In order to secure meaningful leadership support or buy-in for your company’s wellness programs, you’ll need to ponder and answer several important questions.
This engaging exercise is designed to get you and your team members moving in the right direction. In working with leadership, it is important to remember the 6-step process: (1) Establish Common Ground, (2) Connect Emotionally, (3) Make it Personal, (4) Supply the Evidence, (5) Connect the Dots and (6) Build Skills. This exercise will help you master the process.
Developed and used extensively by WELCOA staff and consultants with companies across the US, WELCOA’s Critical Questions will help you to concretely think through the appropriate steps and tasks needed to secure Leadership level buy-in.
The first step in the process of capturing leadership support is to establish common ground.
- What kind of results do our leaders want to see from our wellness initiative? (e.g. engagement, cost savings, health improvements, etc.)
- Are we sure that these are the results they want to see?
- What does this mean for our wellness program?
- How are we doing in being able to give our senior leaders the evidence they want to see?
- What are the most important outcomes we can share with our leaders?
(See PDF Acivity: List 3)
The second step in effectively engaging our leadership in supporting the company’s wellness initiative is to connect emotionally.
- What kind of personal stories of health improvement already exist within our organization?
- How might we best tell them to our leadership?
The third step in engaging our leadership in supporting the company’s wellness initiative is to make it personal.
- How are our leaders doing with respect to their overall health status?
- Is there a champion for personal health among our executive/management team?
- What resources might we leverage to help our leaders protect their health and become healthier?
The fourth step in engaging our leadership in supporting wellness within our organization is to supply as much evidence about the success of worksite wellness programs as we can.
- What resources already exist to help us do this?
- Are there other companies within our industry that have built great wellness programs?
- Are there other companies within our community that have built wellness programs that would capture the attention of our leaders?
- How can this information be leveraged to our advantage?
The fifth step in supporting our workplace wellness initiative is to help leadership better understand the specific steps to implementing a workplace wellness initiative.
- How can we leverage the information provided by WELCOA so that they understand the 7 Benchmarks of workplace wellness?
- Is there other information that already exists within our community that can help our leaders?
The final step in capturing leadership support is helping our leaders build the skills necessary to effectively lead the company’s wellness initiative.
- How can we help our leaders be more vocal when it comes to our wellness program?
- How can we help our leaders be more visible when it comes to our company’s wellness program?
