Health and Safety in the Workplace

Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Workplace Health Promotion Program will help you get and sustain Upper Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Workplace Health Promotion Program.

The bottom line in Workplace Health Promotion Programs answer two key questions:
• How will participant health be improved?
• What’s in it for Upper Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.
• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Workplace Health Promotion Program impacts readiness.
• Think like Upper Management: what Workplace Health Promotion Program outcomes will be important from a Upper Management point of view?
• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.
• Ask members how they think a particular Workplace Health Promotion Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Workplace Health Promotion Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Workplace Health Promotion Program first and plan backwards.
• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
• Before planning or starting any part of the Workplace Health Promotion Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be improved? What’s in it for Upper Management?

Step 2: Identify concrete Workplace Health Promotion Program outcomes.
• Identify up front what the Workplace Health Promotion Program is working towards.
o By way of example: will members lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?
• Identify any processes or procedures that will be improved.
o By way of example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Workplace Health Promotion Program goals were met.
• Consider what information is really needed to show Workplace Health Promotion Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important information points and stick to those.
• Think backwards when deciding what information to collect – consider how easily follow-up information can be collected when a Workplace Health Promotion Program ends. Getting follow-up information is frequently a challenge.
• Only collect information for health behaviors or indicators that the Workplace Health Promotion Program actually affected.
o By way of example: if the main Workplace Health Promotion Program goal is that members will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Workplace Health Promotion Program outcome (unless the Workplace Health Promotion Program specifically addresses cholesterol).
• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Workplace Health Promotion Program cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Workplace Health Promotion Program elements must be included to move members towards the Workplace Health Promotion Program goals.
• The concrete Workplace Health Promotion Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Workplace Health Promotion Program on track. All Workplace Health Promotion Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and starting Workplace Health Promotion Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Workplace Health Promotion Programs.