When wellness committee members meet to discuss ways to improve program participation and engagement, they often close a conference-room door. Surrounded by walls, they typically don’t consider this luminous idea— walking out of the building (or picking up the phone) and partnering with bright, energizing wellness resources in their own community.
Community partners are like diamonds not yet mined. Abundant and usually eager to contribute, people such as chefs, bicycle shop owners, college professors, librarians and artists can enable your wellness communication to appeal to the heart, not just the head. Inviting these folks in can inspire your audience to take action.
Here are 4 tips to help you find and use these wellness “diamonds”:
1. Use social media to connect with nearby resources as well as your own employees. Your community is filled with problem solvers, ideas and volunteers that can bring more power, perspective and clarity to your wellness communication. Use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to find resources and begin conversations with them. Also, your employees are texting, tweeting, blogging and posting updates all the time. Social media technology can be the conduit of new ideas and richer interactions.
2. Tap into community activities. Community groups are converting local interest into grassroots-oriented events. Perhaps your organization can sponsor health-related events, or vice versa. Discuss ways to share resources, reduce costs and leverage your messages.
3. Collaborate with other workplaces and institutions. Bring their expertise to your wellness program. Invite them to write a guest column in your next wellness newsletter, or to join you for your next wellness meeting.
4. Watch new communication technologies carefully, including video streaming. They enable us all to connect and interact more. Social interaction is a fundamental human need, and tools like video streaming are making this interaction more visual and instantaneous. Consider a wellness-program participant with back problems. In addition to receiving phone calls from a corporate wellness coach, imagine him viewing a short video of a skilled acrobat in action who then demonstrates simple exercises that strengthen back muscles. Seeing is believing.
Uncover some compelling new ways to communicate by using community resources, and watch what happens: More employees will “wake up.”
Want more insight? Start here:
1. For more perspective on tapping into community resources to enhance your wellness program, read our e-book, New Perspectives in Wellness & Benefits Communications.
2. Check out Hope Health’s integrated line of ready-to-use communication pieces that you can customize with your information — a little or a lot! All medically-reviewed, professionally written and ready to go at www.hopehealth.com.
COMING SOON: HopeHealthLibrary.com. Hundreds of health and wellness articles available for you to license and use in your wellness communications. More details to come….
