Worksite Wellness ProgramsWorksite Wellness Programs

Think about why you’re evaluating and what your evaluation is going to measure. If you’re trying to find out whether program has been efficacious, see if you followed your mission statement and met your goals and objectives. If you don’t have a mission statement or goals and objectives, decide with senior staff and your employee Worksite Wellness Program Committee how your organization will measure success. For example, you can measure success by changes in:

• Physical measures (e.g., strength, flexibility, waist circumference of workers).
• Psychological measures (e.g., employee morale, satisfaction levels, stress levels).
• Productivity measures (e.g., decline in absenteeism rates, increased employee productivity).

Thinking About workers

If you’re thinking of making improvements to the program, consider whether the program is still relevant and fitting for workers. Find out if there are any obstacles to participation in the program or to participation in physical activity during the workday. As workers are the ones participating in the program, it’s important to give them a chance to support feedback on the physical activity program.

Choosing an Assessment Method

Decide on your evaluation method. Both measurable results (e.g., absenteeism rates or questionnaire responses) and descriptive results (e.g., one-on-one interviews or focus groups) can be used to evaluate. The method you choose will hinge upon the time and funding available and what you want to measure.

Deciding How to Do the Assessment

Decide when and where you will do your evaluation (and who will be evaluated). For more information, read the “Types of Evaluations” section on this website. You may want to pilot test your evaluation (e.g., with members of the Worksite Wellness Program Committee) before sending it out to workers. The employee Worksite Wellness Program Committee may also want to evaluate the initiative’s planning process.

Doing the Assessment

• Compare your results to baseline information (i.e., evaluation results from before the launch of your program). If you don’t have this information, save your evaluation results to compare with later results. You can also look at other information you may have, such as employee satisfaction survey results.
• Analyze and share meaningful and easy-to-understand results with senior staff and workers.
• Assessment results can be used to improve the current physical activity program and/or to develop new initiatives in future.