HRM 0124: Workplace Wellness Program Study and Recommendations

This report examines three workplace wellness programs: smoking cessation, mindful Mondays for mental health, and a 'Take the Stairs' challenge for physical activity. The analysis assesses each program's appropriateness for addressing employee health issues, such as smoking habits, stress, and lack of physical fitness. Recommendations include implementing smoking cessation programs with incentives and no-smoking policies, conducting mindful Monday sessions with meditation and yoga, and encouraging stair climbing with rewards. The report justifies these recommendations by highlighting the benefits of reduced healthcare costs, improved mental well-being, and enhanced physical health, ultimately aiming to increase employee commitment and productivity. The report includes figures and tables to support the analysis and recommendations, emphasizing the importance of proactive wellness initiatives in the workplace. The conclusion stresses the urgency of addressing mental health and smoking cessation due to their significant impact on employee well-being. The report is a response to HRM 0124 Workplace Health and Safety Assignment 3: Workplace Wellness Program Study.

Running head: DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note:

1DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
Introduction
The paper aims to discuss about the three wellness programs to be taken as examples
and their appropriateness to the emerging issues operating in the industry concerning the
health of employees. The paper focuses on the main three employee wellness areas namely-
the physical activity, tobacco usage and the mental health.
Discussion
1. Smoking Cessation Program
Appropriateness of Program
The program is appropriate for the increased usage of smoking by the employees in
their personal lives and the harmful effects created in their biological health. The excessive
workload and the work stress cause the employees to take smoke breaks often in the
workplace which cost the company the opportunity time lost (Kava et.al, 2018).
Recommendation for implementation
a. The program can be implemented through provision of gift coupons to the employees
in order to encourage their motivation to curb the harmful habit of smoking.
b. The workplace should put signs of no smoking in the stairs as well as outside the
corridors of the workplace to prevent frequent smoking breaks
Justification for recommendation
These recommendations are to be imposed to not only improve the morale and the
urge to decrease their smoking habit but also keeping the workplace discipline maintained
with less productivity hours misuse in terms of smoke breaks or leaves and the reduction of
healthcare costs to the employees who may suffer from illness due to smoking (Papia et.al,
2018).

2DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
Reduced
producvity
Absenteeism Healthcare
costs
Smoke
breaks
$0
$500
$1,000
$1,500
$2,000
$2,500
$3,000
$3,500
Per year cost of smoking (on
average)
Figure1: The cost of smoking to the company per year on an average
Source: Created by author
2. Mindful Mondays
Appropriateness of Program
This program is appropriate for the promotion of stress management and the mental
health of the employees in the workplace. The employees often burnout and suffer from
frustration to meet the deadlines and meeting the targets (Karimi et.al, 2019). This creates
lots of physical and mental stress on the employees making their productivity drop and
degrading their work values.
Recommendation for implementation
a. The program should be conducted on Monday as it is the busiest day of the week
b. The program should seek active participation from all the employees in the
workplace.
c. There should be practice sessions of meditation and yoga for thirty minutes in the
workplace

3DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
Justification for recommendation
The recommendations are justified in the sense that employees need to de-clutter their
mind and structure their daily tasks with proper time management (Hafenbrack, 2017). This
mindful Monday sessions can help them connect to themselves in a better way and self-
reflect their mechanism of working. The employees can concentrate on their work better and
their performance can be seen increasing with no procrastination.
50%
35%
15%
Time mangement
Stress management
Motivation in work
Figure 2: The benefits of workplace meditation
Source: Created by author
3. Take the ‘Stairs’ challenge
Appropriateness of Program
The appropriateness of the program lies in the fact that employees in the workplace
are often not involved in the physical activities keeping their body fit. They either sit down in
their workplace or move seldom to bring coffee or visit cafeteria. The employees should be
physically fit. The only way out for the employees to make them actively engage in the
physical activity is to encourage the climbing of stairs rather than taking the elevator (Yang
et.al, 2019).

4DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
Recommendation for implementation
1. The employees should be given physical fitness coupons in their lunch for climbing
extra flight of stairs.
2. Three days a week should be the climbing the stairs activity being the initiative take n
by the company
3. The calories are to be counted on the weekend and prizes to be distributed at the end
of the month to highest stair climber with maximum frequency.
Justification for recommendation
The program is justified in the sense that climbing stairs help the employees who
suffer from increase in heart beat, asthma, and illness with sugar and diabetes (Koster,
Lehmberg & Kneidl, 2019). The employees should be encouraged to take the stairs more and
look after their physical health beside the work commitments. This will help in increasing the
employee commitment.
Number of flight of stairs Calories burned
1 15
2 30
3 45
4 60
5 75
6 90
Table: The amount of calories burned on climbing the stairs 3 times a day with
the number of flights
Source: Created by author
Conclusion
In conclusion, out of the three programs, the two most important programs being the
mindful Mondays and the smoke cessation program should be taken on an emergency basis
due to the increase in smoking rate and mental health issues.

5DESIGN OF WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAM
References
Hafenbrack, A. C. (2017). Mindfulness meditation as an on-the-spot workplace
intervention. Journal of Business Research, 75, 118-129.
Karimi, L., Kent, S. P., Leggat, S. G., Rada, J., & Angleton, A. (2019). Positive Effects of
Workplace Meditation Training and Practice. International Journal of Psychological
Studies, 11(1).
Kava, C. M., Parker, E. A., Baquero, B., Curry, S. J., Gilbert, P. A., Sauder, M., & Sewell, D.
K. (2018). A qualitative assessment of the smoking policies and cessation activities at
smaller workplaces. BMC public health, 18(1), 1-10.
Köster, G., Lehmberg, D., & Kneidl, A. (2019). Walking on stairs: Experiment and
model. Physical Review E, 100(2), 022310.
Papia Sultana, M., Rahman, T., Roy, D. C., Akter, S., Jung, J., Rahman, M. M., & Akter, J.
(2018). Tobacco control policies to promote awareness and smoke-free environments
in residence and workplace to reduce passive tobacco smoking in Bangladesh and its
correlates. PloS one, 13(6).
Yang, B. R., Zhang, Y. C., Lee, H. H., & Tanaka, E. (2019, August). An Automatic
Transformation Method for the Walking Assistive Device to Walk between Flat
Ground and Stairs Safely. In International Design Engineering Technical
Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (Vol. 59230,
p. V05AT07A036). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.