CASE STUDY

GIVING PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED...AND DESERVETHE HALLMARK BUSINESS CONNECTIONS APPROACH TO WORKPLACE WELLNESS

Among our core beliefs at Hallmark Business Connections is a

commitment to the employee as an individual, and to providing each

employee the ability to achieve maximum personal potential in terms of

both productivity and personal job satisfaction.

HealthWorks—our wellness engagement program—is a key component

of our effort to achieve happiness, health, and an enriching experience

for each Hallmark Business Connections employee.

CASE STUDY

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

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HEALTH AND WELLNESS

As a long-time provider of wellness engagement strategies, Hallmark Business Connections enjoys rising to client challenges. One of our most interesting challenges was one that we presented to ourselves: provide a single, cohesive wellness program with relevance to a diverse employee base divided between two distinct locations in Minnesota.

Our Minneapolis office personnel needed the ability to capitalize on access to excellent bike trails and urban fitness amenities. Staffers in our Duluth manufacturing facility needed a way to make the most of access to grand forests and the Great Lake Superior. Any plan we put into place also needed to address the inability of manufacturing employees to access a computer during business hours for the purpose of tracking activities and reporting time spent participating in the program.

PRACTICING WHAT WE PREACH

Following the same advice we give our clients, we turned to our own best practices and started at square one.

The senior leadership team (SLT) at Hallmark Business Connections provided exactly the kind of support a fledgling program needs, commissioning a Wellness Council to mine for insights into what employees feel they needed from a wellness program.

Upon launching the program, SLT members also modeled participation—an important step toward getting employees to understand that the program was developed as an integral part of workplace life.

The Wellness Council—which included representatives from both Minneapolis and Duluth—used surveys and interviews to gather information from the employees for whom the program was being created. That process led to a recommended course of action structured around three essential areas of focus:

Physical Activity: Achieving better health by avoiding a sedentary lifestyle

Wellness/Nutrition: Developing and maintaining healthy habits

Financial Health: Understanding the relationship between wellness and financial stability

SLT endorsed the recommendation enthusiastically and vocally, encouraging support for the initiative throughout the company.

SECURE SUPPORT NEEDS ASSESSMENT PROGRAM DESIGN INCENTIVES

MEANINGFULCOMMUNICATION

PLANCOMMUNITY MEASUREMENT EVALUATION

SECURESUPPORT

Securing the active and enthusiastic support of company leaders is vital to establishing a successful corporate wellness program.

NEEDSASSESSMENT

Learn what the program should provide from the people who will be using it and by observing the general effects of life in your workplace (i.e., perhaps everyone sits too much).

CASE STUDY

The program, named HealthWorks, included:

Health fairs

Onsite biometric screening

Onsite flu shot clinics

Lunch and learn events

At-work yoga

Smoking cessation programs

At-work weight loss program

RunWalkPedal - a summer physical activity challenge

Several financial planning seminars

Each activity was given a point value, with participation, point accumulation and incentive rewards tracked online via user-friendly Hallmark Business Connections technology.

Upon achieving 25 points in the HealthWorks program, employees could begin redeeming their points for gift cards from their choice of merchants.

They were able to choose among hundreds of retailers, restaurants, entertainment providers, and more.

Depending on the merchant selected, employees could choose either a physical gift card, or an online gift card.

Providing a broad spectrum of choice allows employees to select a brass ring to grab for—a reward with personal significance and usefulness.

Not only do such rewards motivate achievements, they serve as positive reminders of the wellness program itself.

Our HealthWorks communication plan was designed to ensure, at a minimum, daily contact with the HealthWorks message. Among the channels employed were:

Greeting cards announcing programs and recognizing participation milestones

Email

Surveys

The advocacy and example of wellness champions among the staff

Regular updates in our quarterly all-employee meetings

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INCENTIVESIncentives—especially those that empower the employee with the ability to choose a reward—are significant strengtheners of engagement.

PROGRAMDESIGN

The size and scope of a program cannot be decided in a vacuum; needs must be ascertained through a structured process of discovery.

MEANINGFULCOMMUNICATION

PLAN

Regular, relevant, communication is essential to engagement; use whatever format fit and your work environments (e.g., manufacturing, office, remote).

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

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RUN/WALK/PEDAL

14-week summertime activity challenge in which every 15 minutes of physical activity earned the participant 1 point.

2,000+ Each week’s participants were entered into a drawing for a cash-value incentive redeemable for gift cards from our merchant partners

Participants who logged points for every week of the program received an additional cash-value incentive

RunWalkPedal hours were logged across the company (more than 140 hours per week on average)

“Watching my points add up every week was a great incentive to stay active all summer. The awards I earned for my participation helped pay for plane tickets to visit my best friend from high school so the program had a very personal reward for me.”

AT-WORK WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM

38 employees participated, each of them taking part in one or more of three 17-week sessions

21 employees participated for (1 session)

10 participated for 34 weeks (2 sessions)

7 participated for 51 weeks (3 sessions)

Combined weight loss for all sessions exceeded 1,000 pounds.

“By the end of 17 weeks, I had lost 25 pounds and had already changed my habits so much that it really didn’t feel like dieting any more. I was proud of what I had accomplished and how I looked. I’m so thank-ful Hallmark Business Connections cared enough about its employees to offer this fantastic opportunity to lose weight and learn healthier eating habits. It’s my new lifestyle and I love it!”

SUCCESS STORIES:

AT-WORK YOGA

Yoga classes were made available in conference rooms during the workday lunch hour

Modeling program leadership, managers supported the efforts of team members to participate

Employees paid a small fee, through payroll deduction, making it easy and affordable

“I would come back to work an hour later relaxed and energized. I would definitely be all for having this offered again.”

CASE STUDYCASE STUDY

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Posters and easel boards in common areas

Agenda items for weekly department meetings

HealthWorks Week—an entire week devoted to wellness-related topics and program participation

Articles in our monthly Hallmark business connections newsletter

Dedicated HealthWorks area in employee break rooms

Notices in employee restrooms

Community proved to be a critical element in the success of our program. While employees made use of the program across our entire range of offerings, our most popular activities were those with a social, interactive component.

Evaluation (as does Measurement) remains a constant process in HealthWorks, one that continues to strengthen our overall wellness effort.

Among the positive discoveries evaluation has provided is the affirmation of our belief in reaching out on a personal level about the subject of employee wellness—reaching out on a level that Hallmark knows better than any other company in the wellness arena.

We’d be honored to help your company make the most of its corporate wellness opportunities, too. Please contact us about setting up a discussion of your needs and goals.

SNAPSHOT OF SUCCESS

As our program was being built, our team decided on 70% participation as a key indicator of success.81% of our Hallmark Business Connections staff participated in HealthWorks, surpassing our target goal by 11 percentage points.

70%

81%

PARTICIPATIONGOAL

PARTICIPATIONACTUAL

MEASUREMENT

EVALUATION

It’s important to who is using your program, how much it’s being used, which activities draw the most participants. Decide what success looks like for program and measure against that expectation.

Regularly review your program against company and employee expectations; knowing what works and what needs work will help participation and engagement grow.

Most Popular Activities

RunWalkPedal

At-work yoga

At-work weight loss program

COMMUNITYFoster a sense of community by allowing people to share their experiences and challenges, and even enjoy some friendly competition.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Hallmark Business Connections is the business-to-business subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, Inc. Our mission is to help businesses build and strengthen the customer and employee relationships that make them thrive. We do that using a combination of communication and incentive strategies informed by more than 100 years of Hallmark experience in personal-level communication and in-depth knowledge of the segments we serve (Wellness Engagement, Customer Engagement, and Employee Recognition).

ABOUT HALLMARK BUSINESS CONNECTIONS

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