Group backing and encouragement can be very beneficial in supporting staff members make healthy changes. Create situations, peer groups, or information avenues where the expertise and experiences of coworkers can be shared with others. Some ideas for providing onsite backing for healthy changes include:
• Employees can be asked to voluntarily submit suggestions, advice, and strategies related to particular healthy practices they have successfully implemented in their lives. For example, ex-smokers can be asked to submit suggestions about what worked for them when they quit; then those ideas can be shared in newsletters, flyers, classes, etc.
• Topics like weight control, stress management, managing change, increasing exercise, etc. lend themselves to this development of collective wisdom sharing.
• Behavior change reinforcement groups, created based on employee interest in making healthy change, can meet on regularly to share ideas, resources, support, etc. Corporate Wellness Programs can offer some assistance and facilitation in getting a group going. The group then itself takes charge of keeping the group going. Periodically the wellness program can offer to bring in a presenter on a topic relevant to the group. Be sure to help the group agree upon ground rules that everyone agrees to before the group is left on its own.
