Program assessment may be The last step, but it ought to be planned at the beginning of your efforts!  Evaluation helps you identify what parts of the program are working well and what parts could use improvement.  Then, based on the assessment data, adjustments can be made to fine-tune your wellness program.   Adjusting the program based on assessment data is essential to its continued performance.  

Reviewing your program need not be terribly complex.  However, it is significant to plan how you will monitor your wellness efforts and determine effectiveness during the planning phase or Step 5.  Also keep in mind to evaluate the program based on the objectives and goals you already established during your creating process.  

In order to evaluate your program you must have a system to document specifics as you go along.  This can be as simple as maintaining file folders on programs that are offered, or a computer document with a table or spreadsheet summarizing information collecting.  Consider:

• Program topic and numbers of employees who participated
• The numbers of handouts taken by staff members or distributed and on what issues
• The number of participants in a behavior modification program and how many met their goals/objectives as well as how many attended all of the sessions
• Numbers of staff members who continued the healthy behavior modification following the program?
• Overall employee satisfaction with the program or each topic.  

Depending on your goals and objectives, gather desired data and compare it to previous data collected during the initial assessment to determine if the goals and objectives were met.  Such data might include

• Absentee rates
• Injury rates
• Health risk factors Insurance costs  

Summarize and Report Employee Health Promotion Program Results

Once you have collected all of the evaluation information it needs to be reviewed with the Employee Wellness Program Committee and summarized.  You will probably have positive results and some areas where a change is needed or additional focus needed for continuous improvement.  This not-so positive information can be used to make any needed changes as well as to plan for next year and is valuable to include in your report.  

It is important to communicate the wellness program results to both senior staff and staff members.  Consider how senior staff usually receives reports on operations and work rate issues and include the annual wellness program report in the same format.  At some corporations the reports are made during senior staff gatherings using presentation styles such as authority point slides.  At other corporations, graphs and bar charts are the norm or a list of the objectives and the summary outcomes reported.  

No matter the format, it’s significant to convey the outcomes and successes achieved, including any anecdotal stories, as well as areas for improvement.  Be sure to link the outcomes to the corporation mission and bottom line whenever possible.

Staff Members want to receive the same information!  You might use the same communication channels used when informing employees of the wellness program:

• Corporation newsletters,
• Bulletin boards,
• E-mails  

Also consider celebrating successes and recognizing achievements by:

• Posting pictures from programs
• Highlighting effectiveness stories
• Posting pictures of successes
• Scheduling a celebration
• Recognizing champions