On February 21, 2018 we facilitated the first session of our Manufacturing Roundtable for the Milwaukee Area. Our Roundtables are strictly devoted to idea sharing, discussion of industry trends, and identifying common barriers to foster collaborative tactics! These strategy specific discussions are led by the group, a maximum of 15 participants, in order to expand on program offerings and grow their networks.
With these Roundtables being a new program offering last year, let's give you a little insight to some of the strategies, resources, and tools shared:
Today’s Discussion:
What's working in the Manufacturing Worksite Wellness world?

a. Scaling back the wellness program by identifying new goals and overall simplifying the initiatives.
i. Example: Shifting the focus to increase the overall employee participation and engagement. This allowed employees who previously were reluctant to become more involved because it was “easier”.
ii. Example: Creating more, but smaller interventions throughout the year that are fun and easy for the wellness team to implement. The incentives are nominal, but offered more often which creates more opportunities for employees “to win”.
b. “Wellbeing Wednesday”: Creating a Wellbeing Calendar with monthly initiative themes. These initiatives took place during the lunchtime and required employees to complete short evaluations after each event. Even though these monthly initiatives brought small groups of 10-15 employees together, they increased cohesion by:
i. Driving conversation between employees
ii. Fostering relationships
iii. Giving employees a reason to get up from the desk
c. One organization created 4
Pillars of Wellness: physical, emotional, financial, and social. (*Pictured to the left:
Standard Process' Wellness at Work defined.)
d. Raffle Incentives
i. Cash Raffle for all Participating Employees: This employer set up a table in a high traffic area with program information, registration forms, and snacks. For each shift change, 2-3 Wellness Champions, who are also fellow coworkers of the employees, recruited employees to sign up for wellness initiatives throughout the year and informed them of the cash raffle. The end of the year cash raffle only required employees to register and complete at least one wellness initiative. Cash prizes were offered as a bonus check and included: one $500 prize, one $300 prize, and one $200 prize for employees; and one $300 prize for spouses. This employer has a total of 150 employees with 120 enrolled for insurance. The results included 110 employees registered for wellness initiatives and 40 spouses registered for wellness initiatives.
ii. Raffle PTO days instead of cash prizes. Employees are entered in the drawing for participation and/or for every 100 participants, one randomly selected employee receives a PTO day.
iii. Employees receive a gift card for completing the wellness initiative’s end evaluation.
e. Recognition
i. Peer nomination for wellness champions or employees dedicated to their wellbeing or the wellness programs.
ii. Employees who were nominated by the wellness committee (or peer nomination) received an opportunity to go out to lunch with a leadership staff member. Employees also chose the restaurant! This provided a higher level of recognition, a chance for employees to provide insight, and an opportunity for leadership to be visible. The employee who received the recognition also had autonomy in selecting not only the leadership staff they preferred, but also the location. Who doesn’t love a free lunch?
f. The wellness team and leadership found success with collecting feedback by simply walking the floor and conversing with the employees. They discovered that the employees didn’t want to “login to anything” and they “didn’t like long wellness challenges”. The wellness team switched to fun, short term challenges that were team based. All participating employees received gift bags with small token items, and were entered into a drawing for a larger prize.
Other resources offered to attendees:
- Sample employee Financial Wellness survey
- More examples of organizations who defined and branded "wellness pillars"
- Connections to organizations who offer financial wellness services to employees (not products)
- Connections to providers who offer employee challenges with fitness trackers
- Two turnkey Financial Wellness challenges