INDUSTRY VOICES

When company leaders are wellness role models, great things happen

By Kristine Holbrook, MEd

Senior Vice-President of Employer

Health & Wellness Services

MediFit Corporate Services

Wellness role models are not only champions of the program; they are active and visible participants. So, how can we drive more company leaders to become wellness role models? And what great things could happen if we do?

A mature program with wellness role model leaders provides insights

Let’s look for a minute at a specific location within a financial services company that consistently leads the organization on all business line performance metrics, including “voice of the employee” satisfaction results, when compared to other locations within the company’s North American operations. The president of this particular location, when asked “how do you do it?”, largely attributes their results to their wellness program.

The president’s answer? Success starts with leaders serving as role models for the rest of the organization. And, while he admits that getting leaders to be actively and visibly engaged can be challenging, he realized that the task can boiled down into four, simple elements:

1.        Call to Action: Establish a compelling call to action that garners attention and triggers action. Succinctly state what you need, how it applies to the goals and objectives of corporate leadership, and why it’s business critical. When talking with management, ask “how” they can get involved instead of “will” they get involved.

2.        Personalization: Recognize that each leader has unique interests. Encourage variation in how management gets involved by seeking to understand their personal values. Strive to connect their involvement to a greater purpose or cause in which they are highly invested.  

3.        Progression: Start at a place that matches their current skill and comfort level. Eliminate potential barriers to participation and make it easy to get, and stay involved. Progressively advance their level of involvement as the leaders experience success and their sense of ability increases.

4.        Feedback: Provide continuous and timely feedback on how employees are responding to leadership involvement. Provide outcomes that are of interest to leadership. Communicate appreciation in ways that leadership values (and that encourage their sustained involvement).  

Applying the recommendations to a start-up program

At the company I work for, MedFit, we’re constantly refining how we approach leaders and how we engage them to become wellness role models. Here’s an example of some early results we've achieved by applying the approaches recommended above:

In March of 2011, it was decided that a CEO at one of our clients (in this case, a retail outlet) would announce a desire to increase physical activity among employees, and challenge executives to join the effort. Following this initial outreach and invitation, the wellness team approached executives to gain their commitment to serve as active role models.

Since the launch of this effort, 93 percent of executives at individual sites have actively led a physical activity challenge, many of them doing so twice.  Additionally, when compared to other physical activity offerings that do not enjoy this level of leadership involvement, we've realized a 70 percent increase in employee participation.