Michelle Bourgoin, Director of Wellness for the Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport for the Government of New Brunswick (GNB), presented recently at the Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management meeting. Bourgoin shared GNB’s experiences in implementing a comprehensive workplace wellness initiative for Government of New Brunswick (Part 1) employees. GNB announced Live, work, play . . . be well a 4-year comprehensive workplace wellness initiative in April, 2010, led by the Department of Wellness, Culture, and Sport and the Office of Human Resources. The initiative marks one of the first of its kind in Canada, which provides bilingual services to over 10,000 employees dispersed through a large number of departments in nine geographic regions within the province. Creative Wellness Solutions has been partnering with the Government of New Brunswick to assist in the implemention and evaluation of workplace wellness interventions in delivering GNB’s Workplace Wellness initiative. WorkplaceWellness interventions include an annual Wellness Profile Assessment as well as a variety of wellness challenges, videos and resources which are delivered online through My Wellness World, GNB’s e-wellness portal. GNB is also the first to add a mental fitness component to its initiative, notes Bourgoin.
Other components that set the initiative apart from others are its focus on readiness to change and commitment to confidentiality and privacy through aggregrate reporting so employees cannot be personally identified.
One interesting observation of the initiative to date is that it’s not just “healthy” people participating. Also, although Wellness Profile Assessments are offered annually, Bourgoin notes that employees feel so compelled by the information they receive, they feel they need time to work on their personal risk factors and their wellness goals and feel they don’t need to repeat the assessment as frequently as thought.
Early results of the initiative are reflective of the literature on wellness, particularly for gender differences in participation and generational health issues, such as smoking rates and safety practices, for the under 25 employee population.
In subsequent years of the initiative, Bourgoin notes they need to focus on enhancing communication/promotion strategies and incentives to reach the desired goal of 100% participation in the initiative. They also need to focus on retention of younger employees and integrating HR practices with the Workplace Wellness initiative. This would also include taking steps to enhance managerial skills to deal with mental fitness in the workplace – a cornerstone of GNB’s Workplace Wellness initiative.
The Workplace Wellness initiative costs $22 per employee per year which Bourgoin says is “not a lot to invest.”
Moving forward, Bourgoin says they are looking at the “mobilization of data” and the “freedom of employees to shape it” in ways that fit their needs and interests so it becomes meaningful to them.
