“healthy monday” - raising health in the workplace

With an increased national focus on employee health, many employers have begun implementing various worksite wellness programs, encouraging healthy behaviors among their employees. Despite their accessibility, many worksite wellness initiatives struggle with participation and retention because wellness coordinators struggle with how to effectively deliver health communications to their employees. One solution is for wellness coordinators to disseminate health communications when employees are most receptive to these messages. New research shows that sending weekly messages on Mondays may be an ideal frequency and time to motivate people to start and maintain healthy behaviors. By leveraging the natural tendency to focus on health behaviors at the beginning of the week, worksite wellness initiatives can boost participation levels and contribute to establishing habitual thinking about health. Building on this idea, The Monday Campaigns created “Healthy Monday,” a creative campaign adapted to encourage employees to use Monday as the day they think about their health choices and make efforts to engage in healthy behaviors. Several large employers across the country are participating in “Healthy Monday” and using the campaign as a platform to increase participation in their worksite wellness initiatives that cover a range of health behaviors such as exercise, healthy eating, tobacco cessation, and more. This session details how various worksites improved their programmatic outcomes using Healthy Monday and furthermore, how other organizations can replicate these successes with their own employees by leveraging the “Monday Effect” to successfully disseminate health communications and improve programmatic outcomes.