Implementing a Health and Wellbeing Program - Example

Heading: Implementing a health and wellbeing program Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Background information 3 Choice of the Organization 3 Benefits of health and wellbeing program 4 Organizational Requirement (e.g. time and resources) 5 Costs/financial requirements 6 Potential risks of the program 6 Options and the most feasible option 6 Background information Various organizations in the twenty first century apparently have realized that there is a relationship between wellness of their employees and the overall performance of the organizations. This realization manifests in the area of health services within organizations, which continuously occupy vital priorities in the Human Resources Divisions of companies. Companies have discovered the value of investing in the health and wellness of employees (Johanns, 2009, p24). It is no longer strange to find companies in this age introducing medical Insurance covers for their employees. Apart from health insurances, some organizations have in place first aid kits and dispensaries for emergency responses. They also have professionals, who are responsible for administering first aid and life-saving services. Regardless of the exorbitant costs of health and wellness programmes, companies prefer them in various forms, since they have long-term sustainable benefits with direct impacts on the companies’ production and profitability. Failure to establish the programmes imply that the employees’ health standards will be compromised and hence poor work delivery. It also leads to poor work attendance. Health programmes in organizations play the roles of securing the safety of employees both at work places and outside. They also guarantee access to health facilities and medical services on as needed basis. Thirdly, these programmes enable employees to acquire knowledge health related knowledge. Most organizations have come to believe, and rightly so, that prevention is cheaper than cure. Basic health education therefore practically reduces the chances of Terminal diseases and other serious health conditions such as obesity, hypertension, gouts and diabetes. Companies have realized that health and wellness programmes have the capacity to sensitize people about heath matters and impose a paradigm shift in employees’ lives. Many companies periodically invite health specialists to address their employees on various topics such as nutrition, Sexually Transmitted Illnesses, Cancer and the significance of regular check-ups. Essentially, these programmes reflect the understanding of modern organizations that healthy employees form a healthy organization and secure sustainable performance of the organization (Wishart et al, 2007, p227). Wellness programmes enable companies to respond in right time to disease outbreaks and emergence of prevalent diseases such as prostate cancer. Medical Insurances in health programmes facilitate the acquisition of health services without the need to spend money. Choice of the Organization This study specifically focuses on the health and wellness programme using the case scenario of Swift Errands, an international courier service company. Swift Errands being a cargo and parcel transfer company has had cases of involvement in medical challenges arising from frequencies of accidents and injuries from robberies, apart from the natural illnesses. Swift Errands offers medical Insurance covers to its employees with various limits depending on the employee’s job-grade. The lowest job grade in Swift Errands presently has an outpatient cover limit of about US$ 812.50 per year. The second job grade has a cover of US$ 6250 per year (Jesson, 2008, p220). In Swift Errands fraternity, employees pass through regular awareness sessions where they get lectures from medical consultants on the significance of responsible behaviours, healthy nutrition, physical training and dangers of drug abuse. Occasionally, the company invites reproductive health specialists. Swift Errands has subscribed for medical services for its employees at various Hospitals in the major cities and all round the cities where its offices exist. Swift Errands has emergency Champions with professional training to administer Emergencies treatments whenever need arises, before handing over the patients to medical experts. With the present programme, Swift Errands has been able to perform well as a result of high level of job attendance. Sick leaves have reduced compared to the earlier 1990s when Swift Errands had not introduced medical Insurance covers. Because employees’ presence has improved, the service delivery improved rapidly (Ghosh, 2009, p350). Additionally, they are healthier and stronger, making them able to perform better. Consequently, Swift Errands customer satisfaction improved from 53% in 1992 to 87% in 2011 (Dau-Schmidt & Haley, 2007, p314). Secondly, employees’ attitude improved, as a result of recognition of the commitment of the company to promoting their welfare. It ignited their moral and triggered a paradigm change in the employees from laxity to result-based work attitude. Thirdly, health awareness has reduced the costs of medical treatments since the risks of diseases are reduced. This means that the need for medical attendance has reduced since the implementation of the wellness programme. This program is a possibility, since it has two practical points of actions. Te first action is to provide the health services through the hospitals. This is a correction strategy. The second method is preventive since it focuses on health awareness. It thus enables employees to participate in promoting their own health. The programme does not require unrealistic resources. Swift Errands as a company has enough time to have meetings and agree on a specific time frame. Secondly, the company has employed professionals. This means it has high level skills among its staff members, added to the use of Modern technology (Including Information Technology). With strong and healthy employees, Swift Errands has access to energetic man-power. Any task that involves physical action will hence be achievable. This programme does not require any inaccessible set of equipment. The kind of activities here requires simple equipment, which are readily available such as motorcycles, refrigerator, first-aid kit etc. Benefits of health and wellbeing program Essentially, health and well-being programme plays the key role of articulating and protecting the welfare of employees, providing the executive and senior management with enough time to make critical decisions. Ultimately, the programme is a good platform for propelling the achievement of the core strategic objective of the organization. It creates employee loyalty by transforming their attitudes, thus instilling a sense of responsibility and ownership of tasks (Michelle, 2008, p23). The programme also protects the organization from legal tussles with workers unions in cases of lawsuits related to medical services. For a health and wellness programme to be successful, an organization requires certain supportive factors. These factors fall under three wide categories, enabling factors, Triggering factors and resisting factors. Enabling factors are conditions that make it easy for the programme to succeed. These, include positive response from the target group, favourable government policies and the availability of necessary resources. Triggering Factors are conditions that force the organization to seek the implementation of these programmes. Such conditions include frequent complaints from employees, government requirement and inefficiency in the prevailing system. There are however a separate category of factors which hinders the effective performance of the system. These factors fall under the class of resisting factors, and the company must overcome all of them to succeed. Swift Errands has faced inadequate cash flows, forcing the company to lay off a number of staff members on voluntary exits. Organizational Requirement (e.g. time and resources) According to the discussion findings, Swift Errands operate successfully due to the support it obtains from the operating conditions. The progress in the implementation of the health and wellness program is due to the access to vital resources such as time, technology and skills, work force and equipment. Health and well- being programme has undergone gradual transformation over the past few many years. Each phase of transformation paved way for error rectification and chances to learn variety of implementation methods. Even so, the implementation of the programme has not attained holistic perfection. It has several gaps for improvement especially in the area of health program management automation. The prevailing system experiences data integrity challenges and supports unnecessary bureaucracy between Swift Errand’s procurement and its external service providers. The other challenge with time is the failure of health program initiative to meet its deadlines. The program co-ordinator apparently doesn’t prepare working schedule for monitoring the progress and status of projects. To that effect, projects take unnecessarily longer durations. Swift Errand prides itself in having its health and wellness programme running on an integrated Management Information System. This system was introduced in the year 2006 and it has undergone transitional changes prompted by contemporary needs over the past years. In its recruitment, the organization concentrated on selecting professionals for the purpose of labour division and specialization. The recruiting panels have always made sure that every area of the organizational needs had specialists. Health and well-being thrives well as a program of priority because of the availability of health professionals. This saves on cost of operations since it minimizes the needs for outsourcing of various functions. Even the Management information System itself is an internal product of the Information systems division of Swift Errands, which would have otherwise cost the organization a minimum of US$ 200,000 (Cortez, 2008, p72). Swift Errands has gradually accumulated fixed assets to enable its functions to run uninterrupted. Health and wellness program runs satisfactorily owing to the availability of necessary apparatus whenever needed. The organization procurement department emphasizes to the entire organization significance of resource conservation, reducing the need for repairs and replacements. Specifically for health programme, the company has training equipment for training health champions on disaster management. Costs/financial requirements The management information System of Swift errands has a strong data integrity and audit trail system. This enables the company to ascertain with accuracy, the financial needs and budgeting requirement. It enables the health and wellness program to receive appropriate fund allocation regardless of the changing trends of financial performance. Every department including Human Resources Department, Employee welfare section, presents its coming year’s financial needs at the end of the prevailing financial year. In 2011, the budget for medical services in Swift errands rested at US$ 800,000. However, the claims from the medical insurance company were US 547,600, leaving a surplus of US$ 252,400 out of the total provision. This is a positive trend from the previous year’s medical claim of US$ 640,837. It shows that the health and well-being program is contributing towards cost reduction. This is a motivating factor towards self-accountability and commitment towards the program. The only source for the health program implementation is from the revenues of the organization. Nevertheless, certain organizations occasionally offer subsidies in form of free medical services and promotions. This falls under the category of grants, however non-monetary. Swift Errands aims at improving its performance through diversification in order to secure sustainable income generation. The organization’s decision makers agree that Swift Errands can diversify its sources of funding both internally and externally. Potential risks of the program Implementation of health and well-being program is not without risks according to the discussion. One of the risks which feature as more prevalent is the risk of overutilization of limits. It occurred that some employees do not monitor their spending, and they risk exceeding the insurance limits. Another risk which appeared to be of great impact and probability is that of inconsistent information. This results from the prevailing state of data integrity in the Swift Errands Management Information Systems. The group recommended possible mitigation strategies for managing and reducing risk exposures (Marty, 2007, p430). The strategies include Risk Status Assessment, whereby a team commits to observing and reporting risk indicators. Once they report to decision making teams, they apply preventive and corrective measures to control the possibility of the occurrence of such risks. Options and the most feasible option Out of the study of feasibility factors, the basic performance condition and the benefits of the programme indicates that prevention programs are more reliable and attainable than curative methods. It also costs fewer resources to execute education programs than to seek solution to actual effects of diseases and infections. It has proved feasible in the case of Swift Errands as it manifests in the cost-benefit analysis. In prevention, all members of an organization actively participate in the implementation of health and wellness Program and initiate most of the action plans. On the other hand, curative methods only the medical experts and the organization decision makers initiate actions, hence it consumes more resources and energy. References Cortez, N 2008, Patients without borders: The emerging global market for patients and the evolution of modern health care. Indiana Law Journal, 83, 71-132. Dau-Schmidt, K. G. & Haley, T. A 2007, Governance of the workplace: The contemporary regime of individual contract. Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, 28 (2), 313-349. Ghosh, S 2009, Intellectual property rights: The view from competition policy. Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, 103, 344-351. Jesson, L 2008, Weighing the wellness programs: The legal implications of imposing personal responsibility obligations. Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, 15, 217-298. Johanns, K 2009, “Take a Chance on Wellness:  Educators Across Texas Focus on Leading Healthy Lifestyles.”  Texas: Association of Texas Professional Educators, p 21-27. Marty, A. M 2007, Hurricane Katrina: A deadly warning mandating improvement to the national response to disasters. Nova Law Review, 31, 423-451. Michelle, S 2008., A Conceptual Model of Historical Trauma: Implications for Public Health Practice and Research," Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, Fall, 23. 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