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Labor and Personnel Coaching helps employees attain wellness goals
Although the concept of wellness – making good health an actively sought goal – is becoming more popular, it is also something that many Americans struggle to reach or maintain.
While most of us understand the connection between lifestyle choices and good health, the health of many Americans remains in jeopardy. (Note the 1.6 million new cases of diabetes each year, 26 million Americans with heart disease, and one-third of adults who are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.)
Why aren’t we doing better? A variety of factors get in the way, such as the stress and demands of everyday life, our innate resistance to making changes, and personal histories of repeated failure that lead us to believe we cannot achieve weight and wellness goals. Out of fear, people often turn to quick fixes or choose unrealistic goals, both of which can sabotage the best intentions.
For employers, the struggle with wellness leads to higher health care costs as well as reduced productivity, which, in turn, causes more stress.
This cycle begs for a different approach that can deliver results and a good return on investment. One emerging approach is the use of a wellness coach.
Coaching wellness
Wellness coaches are trained professionals who engage their clients in a supportive partnership that enhances the client’s ability to learn, make desired changes, solve problems, and achieve health goals.
Wellness coaching embraces the concept that, because no two clients are alike, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for achieving wellness. Wellness coaches help each client design action steps tailored specifically to his or her life, level of fitness, and personal circumstances. They will also hold clients accountable to their own stated desires, providing feedback and perspective along the way. As a result, clients stay motivated, make significant changes, and achieve more than they may have thought possible.
Skilled wellness coaches are qualified to confront the complex tangle of mental, emotional and physical health issues that lie at the heart of someone’s inability to change on their own. Unlike consulting, teaching or therapy, however, wellness coaching is not focused on giving advice, delivering curriculum, healing dysfunction, or analyzing behavior. Wellness coaching focuses on manifesting potential through positive action.
A wellness coach works to reconnect clients with what they value most and to help them to remember how good it feels to live in alignment with those values. A doctor might tell you to lose weight, but if you don’t have other good reasons to want to be slimmer – like being able to play with your children or hike with your spouse – it will be an uphill (and ultimately unsuccessful) battle.
Once there is a re-ignited passion around values (e.g., the ability to spend quality time with people you love), the wellness coach will set goals that are appropriate, timely, realistic and provide the spark that will keep the client motivated. Then the client and coach can brainstorm and choose “inspired action” steps to reach those goals. The action steps might include a daily workout or a meal plan, but both would be done in a way that is uniquely suited to, and fun for, that particular individual.
Accountability is one of the most effective components of wellness coaching. It’s one thing to say you will start a new walking regimen, it is quite another to know that someone else is waiting to hear that you did it and how it went.
Wellness coaches can work with people individually or in small groups, in person, over the phone or online. Wellness coaches can connect with clients as part of a larger workshop or initiative, or as a stand-alone service.
Because self-discovery and change take time, coaching is most effective when it can be offered over a period of three months or more. A wellness coach might combine in-person or phone sessions with online coaching as a way to stay in touch over a longer period of time in a way that maximizes convenience and affordability.
Results and ROI
More and more companies and municipalities are recognizing the value of wellness coaching as an effective, preventative measure in creating healthier work forces and dealing with escalating health care costs. Studies show that coaching has been proven to provide a better return on investment than other health interventions.
A 2004 report from the Wellness Councils of America found a $3 return for every dollar invested in personal coaching. Hummingbird Coaching Services, a provider of online wellness coaching, recently reported even better results from one of their Fortune 500 clients. The client achieved an estimated 23 percent decrease in medical costs over six months using wellness coaching, with an estimated annual return of $5.50 for every dollar spent.
A number of experimental randomized control studies show that personalized online coaching support is significantly more effective in helping people lose weight, maintain weight loss, control diabetes, and manage cardiovascular disease than either providing information alone or providing primary physician care alone.
MIIA offers members a few different programs that use wellness coaching. The Relax, Renew and Rebalance stress reduction program and the Heart Matters cardiovascular health program both offer coaching follow-up for those who complete the program and want help in maintaining their lifestyle changes. MIIA also offers wellness coaching as an integrated part of Creating a Healthy You, a six-session workshop that features healthy eating and nutrition sessions with a dietician; personalized goal-setting, action planning and dealing with self-sabotage with a wellness coach; and personalized exercise instruction and planning with a personal trainer. Creating a Healthy You includes individual follow-up coaching sessions for participants after the workshop has ended.
There are myriad ways to incorporate wellness coaching into a health benefits package in order to reduce health risks and costs for employers. Wellness coaching offers an opportunity to make a worthwhile investment in the most valuable asset of any company, organization or municipality: its people.
Jillian Hanson, CPCC, is a certified coach specializing in wellness and creativity. She provides wellness coaching and a variety of workshops through MIIA.
Labor and Personnel Coaching helps employees attain wellness goals
Coaching helps employees attain wellness goals
Although the concept of wellness – making good health an actively sought goal – is becoming more popular, it is also something that many Americans struggle to reach or maintain.
While most of us understand the connection between lifestyle choices and good health, the health of many Americans remains in jeopardy. (Note the 1.6 million new cases of diabetes each year, 26 million Americans with heart disease, and one-third of adults who are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.)
Why aren’t we doing better? A variety of factors get in the way, such as the stress and demands of everyday life, our innate resistance to making changes, and personal histories of repeated failure that lead us to believe we cannot achieve weight and wellness goals. Out of fear, people often turn to quick fixes or choose unrealistic goals, both of which can sabotage the best intentions.
For employers, the struggle with wellness leads to higher health care costs as well as reduced productivity, which, in turn, causes more stress.
This cycle begs for a different approach that can deliver results and a good return on investment. One emerging approach is the use of a wellness coach.
Coaching wellness
Wellness coaches are trained professionals who engage their clients in a supportive partnership that enhances the client’s ability to learn, make desired changes, solve problems, and achieve health goals.
Wellness coaching embraces the concept that, because no two clients are alike, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for achieving wellness. Wellness coaches help each client design action steps tailored specifically to his or her life, level of fitness, and personal circumstances. They will also hold clients accountable to their own stated desires, providing feedback and perspective along the way. As a result, clients stay motivated, make significant changes, and achieve more than they may have thought possible.
Skilled wellness coaches are qualified to confront the complex tangle of mental, emotional and physical health issues that lie at the heart of someone’s inability to change on their own. Unlike consulting, teaching or therapy, however, wellness coaching is not focused on giving advice, delivering curriculum, healing dysfunction, or analyzing behavior. Wellness coaching focuses on manifesting potential through positive action.
A wellness coach works to reconnect clients with what they value most and to help them to remember how good it feels to live in alignment with those values. A doctor might tell you to lose weight, but if you don’t have other good reasons to want to be slimmer – like being able to play with your children or hike with your spouse – it will be an uphill (and ultimately unsuccessful) battle.
Once there is a re-ignited passion around values (e.g., the ability to spend quality time with people you love), the wellness coach will set goals that are appropriate, timely, realistic and provide the spark that will keep the client motivated. Then the client and coach can brainstorm and choose “inspired action” steps to reach those goals. The action steps might include a daily workout or a meal plan, but both would be done in a way that is uniquely suited to, and fun for, that particular individual.
Accountability is one of the most effective components of wellness coaching. It’s one thing to say you will start a new walking regimen, it is quite another to know that someone else is waiting to hear that you did it and how it went.
Wellness coaches can work with people individually or in small groups, in person, over the phone or online. Wellness coaches can connect with clients as part of a larger workshop or initiative, or as a stand-alone service.
Because self-discovery and change take time, coaching is most effective when it can be offered over a period of three months or more. A wellness coach might combine in-person or phone sessions with online coaching as a way to stay in touch over a longer period of time in a way that maximizes convenience and affordability.
Results and ROI
More and more companies and municipalities are recognizing the value of wellness coaching as an effective, preventative measure in creating healthier work forces and dealing with escalating health care costs. Studies show that coaching has been proven to provide a better return on investment than other health interventions.
A 2004 report from the Wellness Councils of America found a $3 return for every dollar invested in personal coaching. Hummingbird Coaching Services, a provider of online wellness coaching, recently reported even better results from one of their Fortune 500 clients. The client achieved an estimated 23 percent decrease in medical costs over six months using wellness coaching, with an estimated annual return of $5.50 for every dollar spent.
A number of experimental randomized control studies show that personalized online coaching support is significantly more effective in helping people lose weight, maintain weight loss, control diabetes, and manage cardiovascular disease than either providing information alone or providing primary physician care alone.
MIIA offers members a few different programs that use wellness coaching. The Relax, Renew and Rebalance stress reduction program and the Heart Matters cardiovascular health program both offer coaching follow-up for those who complete the program and want help in maintaining their lifestyle changes. MIIA also offers wellness coaching as an integrated part of Creating a Healthy You, a six-session workshop that features healthy eating and nutrition sessions with a dietician; personalized goal-setting, action planning and dealing with self-sabotage with a wellness coach; and personalized exercise instruction and planning with a personal trainer. Creating a Healthy You includes individual follow-up coaching sessions for participants after the workshop has ended.
There are myriad ways to incorporate wellness coaching into a health benefits package in order to reduce health risks and costs for employers. Wellness coaching offers an opportunity to make a worthwhile investment in the most valuable asset of any company, organization or municipality: its people.
Jillian Hanson, CPCC, is a certified coach specializing in wellness and creativity. She provides wellness coaching and a variety of workshops through MIIA.
Written by Jillian Hanson
