Health Fairs Done The Right Way – To “Capitivate People”

A key piece of a successful workplace wellness program is a well planned and organized well attended health fair with measured outcomes, believe members of our Wellness Manager Professional Discussion Group on Yahoo.

My organization puts on a number of health fairs every year for our
employee base, posted a group member.

“We have tried numerous activities and displays. We’d like to provide
something that would truly captivate people but not cost very much to
provide,” she wrote

“Does anyone have any recommendations? Any suggestions?”

Unfortunately, many health fair organizers do not clearly define what the goals and objectives are for their health fair when planning their event, responded a veteran wellness and health promotion professional.

“As a result, the health fairs can be too generic and superficial to provide participants with meaningful information and resources for making changes in their lives,” she said.

When designing a health fair, ask questions. “What changes in the
participants do health fair organizers hope to achieve? What are the unique
needs of the target audience?”

If it is an organizational problem being targeted, what environmental issues
impact on the behavior? After answering such questions, put together a health fair that specifically addresses each of the identified issues, she suggested.

You need a measurement plan for the health fair goals, offered another member.

“Most only count number of participants, but you could count the specific number of each brochure that was picked up, you could count number of participants visiting each booth,” he said.

Or even better would be 

What Strategies Do You Use To Measure Employee Engagement In Workplace Wellness?

This question was posed by a member of our Workplace Wellness Management Group over on LinkedIn. It’s a good question.

As you know, workplace wellness managers are always concerned about employee participation in programs. So it begs the question – how do you measure employee engagement in workplace wellness programs? So we posted the question on the Wellness Managers’ Discussion Group on Yahoo.

The answers were rich in information and helpfulness:

“I think it is important to first define terms. Are employee engagement and participation being used interchangeably because they can also mean different things,” said a long-time member of the group who has multiple wellness-related certifications.

“Measuring participation is fairly straight forward – the number and percentage of employees who register, attend and complete a multi-session program, as an example, can all be tracked and measured,” he wrote.

“I think measuring engagement is trickier,” he continued. “While there are tools out there to measure employee engagement, I am not sure they specifically address wellness program engagement. As I think about wellness engagement, I am thinking that pre- and post- knowledge testing might be used as a measure of learning engagement, while pre and post changes to individual behaviors might be a measure of engagement from the behavior change perspective. I am sure there are others the list can come up with as well.”