Wellness Versus Well-Being Programs

Strategies that promote well-being in the workplace complement any traditional wellness programs or employee benefits you might already offer. Your Happy, Healthy Strategy covers the multiple facets of your employees’ lives and your organization’s culture. Your Happy, Healthy Strategy of well-being is much broader than a traditional wellness program and can draw from or enhance other types of internal plans.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of trends in employer-sponsored health coverage, benefits, and programs defines wellness programs as efforts to improve health and lower costs. The survey found that “a majority of large employers now offer health screening programs including health risk assessments, questionnaires asking employees about lifestyle, stress, or physical health, and biometric screening.” The survey defines these assessments as “in-person health examinations conducted by a medical professional.”¹

The Rand Corporation’s Workplace Wellness Programs Study: Final Report, 2013 describes the traditional workplace wellness program model and how it is delivered and evaluated. According to the report, workplace wellness programs include “wellness screening activities to identify health risks and interventions to reduce risks and promote healthy lifestyles.”²

A Happy, Healthy Strategy takes on the wider lens of well-being in the workplace where physical health is just one aspect. Think of the Five Spheres of Happy, Healthy Living as a framework. Well-being affects more than just our physical self, but also our relationship to others, the environment, work, and technology—a 360-degree scope. A Happy, Healthy Strategy increases the effectiveness of workplace wellness programs and creates a deeper cultural shift with more sustainable change. A Happy, Healthy Strategy engages your leadership and staff in a collaborative effort to improve the well-being of each individual and your organization as a whole.

Amber Hacker, vice president of operations at Interfaith Youth Core, says her organization takes a holistic approach to well-being, starting with its core organizational value: renewal. “This theme is something that informs our talent development strategy, our health and work benefits and policies, and workplace activities. We want to ensure meaningful careers for our staff who stay with us long term and avoid burnout. For example, we offer a benefit of allowing employees to have flexible schedules, like leaving the office early one day if they are taking a graduate class. The activity falls into self-care but supports employee well-being and is connected to our values.”

Melanie Duppins, VP of human capital and teacher outreach at DonorsChoose, says, “We care about our employees’ well-being, and it is much more organic than the traditional wellness program offerings that we also provide. Any time we consider launching activities, we benchmark them against the Gallup Five Elements of Wellbeing: career, social, financial, physical, and community.”³

Duppins’ organization also gets feedback from staff because if it doesn’t “have roots in what they really want and isn’t meaningful to them,” they are wasting everyone’s time.

“We create the space to empower staff to drive it,” says Duppins. “Our strategy is a set of initiatives that are easy to adopt and nimble. We want to live our values about well-being in the workplace, not provide activities where no one engages.”

The CEO of USA for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has strong opinions about how some organizations approach their wellness programs.

“I am somewhat appalled how some workplaces carry it out,” says Anne-Marie Grey, executive director and CEO. “When the emphasis is purely on reducing health costs and tracking employees’ healthy—and not so healthy—behaviors at the individual level, I am not a fan.”

Grey reports that her organization focused on the theme of work-life balance and made a policy of no e-mails except for emergencies between 6:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. on weekdays and never on weekends. They also do not schedule meetings before 10:00 A.M. or after 3:00 P.M., allowing for time for staff to organize, plan, and do real work. They addressed nutrition in the workplace by removing the vending machines, fake creamers, and sodas and replaced them with water, good coffee, and health bars. They instituted a policy giving all employees 40 hours of paid volunteer time, whether they coached a Little League team, took mission trips, or did whatever else interested them.

Your Happy, Healthy Strategy ties passion for your organization’s mission to personal well-being. Taking care of your staff doesn’t mean a failure to take care of those being served by your organization. In contrast, nourishing from within means more energy, attention, and drive for the challenging, important work that many nonprofits do every day.

The Benefits of a Happy, Healthy Strategy

Carefully designed and implemented traditional wellness programs and well-being initiatives can reduce health care costs. The Humane Society of the United States encourages its employees to participate in educational wellness webinars. In return, employees get discounts on their health insurance premium monthly fees. The Crisis Response Network in Tempe, Arizona, saved on the cost of purchasing gym and workout equipment because its health care insurance carrier covered the cost. These savings can be positive outcomes for any organization with well-organized and utilized wellness and well-being programs.

Katie Delahaye (KD) Paine, CEO of Paine Publishing and measurement expert, notes that more than a decade ago, research tied engaged employees directly to improved customer service and higher profits. Paine says, “Today, when your employees aren’t just the face of your nonprofit but your brand ambassadors in their neighborhoods and in social networks, it is critical to keep them healthy, happy, and engaged. The payoff is huge, with lower recruitment costs, higher retention, and more efficiency.” 

Wellness and well-being activities translate into increased effectiveness and productivity and can be directly mapped to results in your organization’s logic models. These include:

• Higher employee work satisfaction and retention
• Ability to attract top talent when recruiting for jobs
• Higher productivity
• Greater ability to handle stressful situations
• Ability to meet and exceed milestones
• Motivated, resilient workers
• Better brand ambassadors
• Responsive and engaged staff
• Fewer absences and sick days

A Happy, Healthy Nonprofit that incorporates self-care and well-being into the way it works can reap tangible rewards.

Why Employee Engagement Is Essential

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of employee feedback and engagement to ensure the success of your Happy, Healthy Strategy. In all the interviews we did for this book, the common theme we heard from nonprofits with thriving WE-care cultures was that they engaged their employees from the beginning. The more involvement and feedback you get from in-house staff from the start, the better chances you’ll have for profound and lasting success.

Your Happy, Healthy Committee is a critical employee engagement tool. When employees are engaged, they participate in programs and activities because they feel a sense of ownership and want to do so, not because they are required. They are passionate about participating and get more energy for their work. They share what they’ve learned and gained with others and encourage others to engage.

“Nine years ago our HR director established an employee committee to launch our program,” says Sales. “The committee meets regularly, surveys staff, creates strategy, and helps steward the plan and evaluates the program.” Their program is a blend of a traditional wellness program and other soft benefits.

In some cases, a committee is formed by an organization’s director as a way of helping to put more permanent policies and programs in place. At the Crisis Response Network, a new executive director triggered a complete overhaul of the organization’s culture, workplace, and policies. Justin Chase, LMSW, CPHQ, took an assessment of the staff’s attitudes and performances at work and realized that a fundamental change had to happen. He took the time to listen to every employee, including the night shift staff, to hear their complaints firsthand and then addressed them.

Chase formed an employee engagement committee made up of people from different departments throughout the organization to report directly to him to turn complaints into concrete changes. He started small, addressing a complaint about dress code discrepancies between the daytime and nighttime staff. The committee was empowered to influence organization policies. It rewrote the dress code and added policy changes to allow staff to eat at their desks. Other changes also let everyone decorate and personalize their workstation, something previous management forbade.

Stepping up the changes, Chase proposed a room in the office be turned into anything the staff wanted as long as they used it for their purpose of choice. The committee created a survey using SurveyMonkey to get staff input and learned that a majority wanted a room with exercise equipment. The committee even polled the staff to find out the type of equipment they’d like in the room. The result was a well-used fitness facility that fosters a stronger sense of well-being among staff. Members of Crisis Response Network’s employee engagement committee became the cheerleaders of the organization’s well-being and wellness initiatives, and they continue to take the pulse of the staff to find out what else can be improved. They’ve also been empowered to carry out assessments, make environmental changes, and influence policy changes.

Foundation Center focuses on well-being in the workplace, something that came about when there was an opportunity for the organization to move into new office space. Says Jen Bokoff, director of knowledge services, “When you sign a long-term lease, it needs to be for a space where staff want to work and can be excited about, both for longevity and to help ease transition. The old office felt ‘unenergized’ and inefficient and had cockroaches in the stairwell.” Definitely a deterrent for walking in the stairwells to promote exercising at work!

Bokoff said her organization wanted the new space to reflect more modern ways of working and communicating to keep staff excited about coming to work and to really make the space something they were proud of and comfortable spending time in.

“A committee of more than 20 people was put together to represent all teams. Everyone took their role on the committee very seriously and came to each meeting with questions, concerns, and ideas,” recalls Bokoff.

Their committee not only discussed specific design features, such as an extra ladies bathroom, but they considered many wellness and well-being topics, such as the food in the vending machines and types of desks. They also discussed how the physical space of the workplace might influence cultural norms and improve social interaction, another element of well-being.

Says Bokoff, “The feedback on all fronts was varied and full of vivacious discussion. For every opinion, there was a counter opinion, and all were appreciated and logical. Decisions were ultimately made by a smaller ‘executive move committee,’ which was very helpful for keeping to a timeline. And we were able to integrate physical features that infuse well-being and wellness into our culture and the way we work.”

As you can see, employee engagement is the fuel for your Happy, Healthy Strategy. Your employee engagement committee is the vehicle to drive that engagement.

Your Policies and Employee Benefits

Part of your Happy, Healthy Strategy is to audit and review your organization’s existing policies and employment benefits that are described in your employee handbook and other documents. Your policies and benefits should be in sync with your wellness and well-being programs and goals. Research and propose changes to existing policies as well as discuss any new policies that could be put into place to better reflect your organization’s happier, healthier culture.

The nonprofit Idealist crafts its policies and benefits so staff have considerable discretion and as much flexibility as possible. The organization respects the variations and preferences of staff when trying to balance their professional and personal lives. Its policies reflect a belief that when staff members are healthy, supported, and have the flexibility they need, improvements occur in service quality, work effectiveness, and organizational climate. Says founder and executive director, Ami Dar, “Idealist is committed to investing in long-term staff stability and satisfaction while acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all formula for policies and benefits that create well-being.”

Says, Kara Montermoso, HR manager at Idealist, “Staff benefits and policies like wellness, which include sabbaticals and vacation time, are broadly defined. We feel that many aspects can contribute to one’s sense of well-being in the workplace, even if impacted by events or situations that are personal and not work-related. And though some benefits are industry standards, we do listen to staff feedback about how to make a particular program work most effectively. From a fiscal standpoint, we provide benefits that can be low-cost with high-impact or satisfaction, benefits that we know we can scale and/or sustain as we grow, and benefits that are competitive and/or reflect best practices.”

You probably have a number of workplace policies already stated in your employee handbook including basic health-related policies such as a tobacco-free workplace, an alcohol/drug-free environment, safety and emergency procedures, and disaster preparedness. While you can’t create organizational policies that dictate a person’s personal lifestyle and habits, you can make statements about what your organization will do to encourage and support well-being through environmental changes, activities, cues, and resources. For example, you can set policies for what your nonprofit will pay for in terms of meals and snacks and the quality of the food purchased for all employees. You can have a policy stating that your organization will only pay for healthy snacks provided on-site for staff.

Another area where your organization can set policy is around work processes and how and when employees can and should break from work to encourage happier, healthier working habits. Jewish Family & Children’s Service of the Suncoast in Sarasota, Florida, staff deals with death and dying, chronic illness, and relationship and money issues on a daily basis with the aging population they serve. The organization offers generous time off policies to help support staff well-being: three weeks vacation the first year, four weeks vacation in all other years, up to 20 paid holidays per year, and one sick day per month.

When BJ Wishinsky, social media manager at Benetech, was volunteering at another nonprofit, she observed a virus—as in actual sickness—overtake one staff member after another because people kept coming into the office even when they were sick. When a job opened up at the nonprofit, Wishinsky thought carefully about working as a full-time employee at the organization.

Wishinsky recounts, “I asked the team, ‘Do you have to be a masochist to work at a nonprofit, or does nonprofit work just tend to attract people who are self-sacrificing?’” That drew some laughter but also a realization that the organization needed to work on changing people’s attitudes toward self-care—literally an attention to taking care of oneself when sick. Wishinsky says the organization eventually created a policy for staff to stay home when sick, and they (mostly) complied.

Writing Your Happy, Healthy Strategy

Your Happy, Healthy Committee can help bring together the different parts of your strategy and develop well-being policies, benefits, activities, and programs that best fit your organization and overall goals for less stress and less burnout. Here’s a checklist of common components for your Happy, Healthy Strategy:

• — Purpose statement
• — List of committee members
• — Goals and objectives
• — Assessments
• — Assessment summary
  • — Environmental assessments
  • — Policy assessments
  • — Cultural assessments
• — Employee surveys and focus groups
• — Benchmarks and baselines
• — Programs, activities, and cues
• — In-house education
• — Rewards and incentives
• — Physical workplace changes
• — Policies and policy changes
• — Well-being partners
• — Community resources
• — Coaching support
• — Peer-to-peer support
• — Group support
• — Online tools
• — Recommended apps
• — Internal communications plan
• — Evaluation

After your staff has participated in surveys and assessments and provided input and feedback to your committee, everyone should feel invested in the launch of your well-being programs or activities, even anticipating them. You’ve identified everyone’s areas of interest in terms of well-being and self-care, their current habits and practices, and even what types of changes they’d like to see or programs they’d like to have available at your organization. Tuning into staff and stakeholder needs and interests guides your committee to the right programs, policies, and perks that should be warmly received.

Rolling Out Your Strategy

Rolling out your strategy and introducing new programs or initiatives requires well-crafted educational information, messaging, and communications tools. As with any campaign that launches a new product or service, you need to provide some education to help people understand what you’ll be revealing to them in the near future along with clear and easily accessible messaging. Take a multimedia approach to communicating your plan to reach employees multiple times and in a variety of ways.

Here are some ideas for getting early awareness and engagement leading up to your launch event:

• Run an organization-wide contest to come up with a name or slogan for the initiative.
• Solicit ideas for incentives and prizes that will stimulate participation.
• Order health-oriented products and merchandise with your organization’s logo. Think T-shirts, pedometers, and water bottles.
• Get early sign-ups for an e-mail newsletter about personal and organizational self-care.
• Hang up posters around your office that attract attention and create interest.
• Make small environmental changes around the office that get noticed:
  • – Improved lighting
  • – Plants
  • – Standing desks
• Add fitness and health-related items around the office space:
  • – Healthy snacks
  • – Fresh water
  • – Exercise balls
  • – Jump ropes

Marketing campaigns usually involve a slow build with teasers to help pique interest to get people talking about the upcoming announcement and asking questions early on. Use preliminary questions to help hone your messaging and programs and to better understand where staff might be misunderstanding or be resistant to your initiatives. Don’t drag out the prep and teasers for your actual launch for too long. Capitalize on the interest and momentum and reveal your Happy, Healthy Strategy before people lose interest.

Evaluating Your Happy, Healthy Organization

Track the results of your organization’s Happy, Healthy Strategy from the beginning. Andrew Means, cofounder of The Impact Lab, says, “When measuring a well-being initiative, it is often thought you can just ask someone about the unobservable thing you are trying to improve. For example, ‘Are you feeling happy?’” Means says that kind of question doesn’t provide good, reliable data. Means recommends looking at more tangible and observable outcomes and track those.

Create a well-being dashboard that is accessible to your board, director, staff, even volunteers, and, if relevant, funders. The most useful well-being dashboards measure both the employee and organization side through surveys, observations, and anecdotes with concrete numbers and statistics.

Revisit your assessments and outcomes at regular intervals. Compare progress to the baselines and celebrate successes. Check in with your board, director, and staff through evaluation surveys. Continue to chart progress in visible ways, sharing the data with all stakeholders and reviewing the bigger picture at the end of the year.

Keep in mind that your organization’s well-being efforts are not all about the data. Data should serve as talking points to share stories of personal triumphs and observations and evidence of culture shifts and your happier, healthier environment. It is easy to get obsessed with the numbers or to feel that only numbers can properly express the ROI of your Happy, Healthy Strategy. Broaden your focus to acknowledge life-changing and life-saving results, enhanced work quality and work environment, and overall improved quality of life because of your happier, healthier organizational culture.

Take feedback to heart. Learn from mistakes and missteps and address what isn’t working. Analyze why not. Don’t bury failures under the proverbial rug, but speak openly about them and look for solutions with wide input. Don’t play a blame-game pointing fingers, but instead encourage open and honest feedback and suggestions on how to improve your Happy, Healthy Strategy and programs.

Shout Hallelujah, Come on Get Happy and Healthy!

Being a Happy, Healthy Nonprofit means empowering your staff to thrive in life and at work. Doing so not only transforms your nonprofit into a high-performing organization but also an awesome place to work. If you follow the steps we’ve outlined in this book, you will create a never-ending well of vibrant and self-sustaining energy, passion, and excitement for your nonprofit’s work that will positively affect outcomes. Be patient, persistent, and keep everyone’s eyes on the prize: happier, healthier people; a happier, healthier nonprofit; and more impact without burnout!