Connect to Wellness

Poor employee health often leads to decreased productivity, increased sick days, and spiraling health care costs. Workplace wellness programs rooted in solid evidence improve employee health. However, most commercial workplace wellness programs target the larger employer market and are not affordable for smaller organizations. Connect to Wellness is a low-cost, rigorously-tested wellness program that offers expert consultation and customized tools tailored explicitly to the capacities of small organizations and the health needs of their employees.

What is Connect to Wellness?
Connect to Wellness is an evidence-based workplace wellness program operating out of the University of Washington Health Promotion Research Center. The program has been used effectively by over 200 employers and 11,400 workers across 15 states. In addition, the success of Connect to Wellness in supporting employers and improving employee health has secured over five million dollars in funding and been featured in more than 50 research publications.

How does the Connect to Wellness program help?
Connect to Wellness supports employers and their employees through an evidence-based workplace wellness program that combines evaluation, expert consulting, and access to digital tools and materials. The program focuses on helping small organizations adopt policies, programs, and communications that increase employee wellness in 6 domains: nutrition, physical activity, tobacco cessation, preventive screenings, epidemics & vaccines, and stress management. Connect to Wellness offers customizable, cost-effective resources including checklists, evaluations, communication and policy templates, and employee-facing materials tested and proven effective in promoting healthy employee behaviors. Organizations can use Connect to Wellness to integrate health-promoting strategies into their infrastructure and employees’ daily routines, which directly benefits employees as well as employers, who now have a powerful tool to increase recruitment and retention, boost productivity, build employee morale, and reduce health care costs.

What do you get when you sign up for Connect to Wellness?  
Upon signing up for Connect to Wellness, organizations receive the full range of toolkits to help them quickly and easily adopt and implement high-benefit, low-cost health initiatives. In addition, evaluation and expert consulting is provided annually to help tailor and manage the program to meet the objectives of the specific organization, which ensures ongoing improvement and adaptation to changing needs.

Toolkits and Resources:
•    Get Started & Evaluations: Resources for getting a wellness program started and maximizing employee engagement and buy-in
•    Wellness Committee: Steps for forming and sustaining a wellness committee to engage employees and facilitate adoption of the health initiatives selected by employers and their employees 
•    Physical Activity: Wide range of tools to promote and support physical activity and appeal to employees at every level of fitness
•    Healthy Foods and Beverages: Tools to encourage healthy eating and drinking through practical guidance and supportive policies
•    Nicotine and Tobacco Cessation: Resources to assist employees in quitting tobacco through stigma-free communications and access to free or low-cost programs
•    Cancer Screening: Information and materials to promote routine cancer screening and access free resources on preventing and managing a cancer diagnosis
•    Stress Management: Resources to reduce stress at the workplace and materials and activities to support employees in managing stress and building resilience
•    Health Communications: Tools and templates on range of health topics that effectively message employees about what matters most for their health and how to achieve their own health goals
•    Epidemics and Vaccinations: Accurate information and effective communication to prevent epidemics and promote vaccinations
•    Sample Employee Interest Surveys: Brief survey templates to identify which health topics employees care about most
•    Printable Posters: Health-promoting posters on range of health topics developed specifically for small workplaces and designed to appeal to and motivate their employees

Assessment:
•    Questions about current health practices to identify specific areas of organization that may benefit from Connect to Wellness tools
•    Conducted via 30-60 minute meeting with Connect to Wellness expert consultant
•    Opportunity for consultant to get to know the organization, including key objectives, current context, and primary concerns
•    Answers to questions used to generate a customized recommendations report

Recommendations Report:
•    Set of tailored recommendations that map to health domains with most opportunities for growth and improvement
•    Delivered via 30-60 minute meeting with Connect to Wellness expert consultant
•    Succinctly summarizes where the organization is, where they could be, how they will get there, and why their employees will benefit

Expertise:
•    Customized consulting through two initial meetings to set up the organization for success
•    Ongoing support to ensure organization is meeting the goals they prioritize to improve employee health

What is the price?
Connect to Wellness is available at the following prices:

•    $550 per year for organizations with fewer than 25 full-time employees
•    $700 per year for organizations with 25 or more full-time employees

LEARN MORE AND CONTACT US

For more information: https://depts.washington.edu/hprc/programs-tools/connect-to-wellness/

If you’d like to talk with us to see how Connect to Wellness can assist you, please contact ctwell@uw.edu

Who can License:
Connect to Wellness can be accessed by individuals or organizations by executing a license agreement.  

How to License:
1.    Select either license you wish to buy and review terms via the "Preview terms" link.
2.    Enter your contact and payment information.  
3.    Pay using one of the following options: (a) at the time of submission via credit card or (b) after submission within 30 days of invoicing via wire transfer check, or purchase order.  Please note that there is an additional $30 fee for payments made via wire transfer.

Getting Access
Once the agreement has been executed and fees have been paid, a member of the Connect to Wellness team will contact you within 5 Business days to schedule 2 meetings for assessment and onboarding and will provide access to the Comprehensive Toolkits upon completion of the second meeting.  If you do not hear from us, please contact ctwell@uw.edu.