182. Top 3 Health Fair Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

In today’s episode, we discuss:

Boosting Team Engagement: Health Fairs and Wellness Days

Join Kathie Owen, a corporate wellness coach, as she discusses the importance of health fairs in boosting team engagement.

In this episode, Kathie shares three key mistakes she made with health fairs and offers practical solutions to avoid them.

Learn the significance of having a health fair, vetting your vendors properly, and creating a detailed plan to ensure success.

Kathie also introduces the concept of Wellness Days and provides tips on themes that can keep your team engaged.

Download her health fair checklist and get valuable insights on organizing wellness events.

Links for Kathie: https://www.kathieowen.com/corporate-wellness and https://www.kathieowen.com/links 

Health Fair Checklist download here: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/621660/132195089544905965/share

Join the Top Workplace Wellness Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/787187603600258

Transcript

0:00

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever you happen to be watching this. Hello, my name is Kathie Owen. I am a coach for Corporate Wellness Directors, Human Resources Administrators and more. And today we are talking about health fairs to build team engagement because one of the top problems that I hear is that my team is not engaged. Today I'm going to give you three mistakes that I have personally made on my health fairs that make a difference in team engagement. Team engagement is a big deal and it's kind of hard to get so when I started as the fitness director at the company that I work for right now there was Only the gym and the gym was just used gym equipment and today We're not talking about the gym stuff. Although I am gonna have an episode on that soon But what we're talking about is health fairs and so what changed my job and even my title to Fitness and wellness director was a health fair because the health fair really has a diverse array of vendors that you could invite to this that will make a difference in your team engagement. And what happened was I had my very first health fair after I'd been with the company for four years. And when I did that, I saw team engagement go off the charts, through the roof. And that is why I I am a big proponent for health fairs, but mistake number one is not having a health fair at all. If you don't have a health fair, you're not even going to know what your team wants in, as far as it goes with wellness. And, um, Not having a health fair held me back, and once I did it, it made a difference because you can invite in a diverse array of vendors that can appeal to everybody on the team. So having a gym for your employees is great, but only a select few will want to even partake in that amenity. But those few can also spread the word, and then you also have the opportunity. The gym for your employees, which is great, but the health fair is an awesome way to get your team understanding different amenities that are provided by the community. Not only that, you will have vendors knocking at your door to get in front of your team. I invite physicians in, chiropractors, dentists, mental health professionals, I also invite in supplement places, I have a med spa that I invite in, that they can come in and share with the team different things that they do to promote wellness. And this also leads me to mistake number two, and that is not vetting your vendors. What do I mean by that? You don't ask your vendors specific questions to make sure that they are going to take care of your team. So one of the mistakes that I made one time was I had a chiropractor come in and he turned out to be unethical in my opinion. What happened was he had a franchise and he had to sell so many chiropractor practice treatments to keep this franchise alive and it was kind of like a scheme to keep people going. I'm not saying he wasn't a good doctor but what happened was I had some employees that really needed his services but they couldn't afford it and that is not being diverse enough in your wellness event. And what ended up happening was he still kept my wealthy people in, in his practice and he would like tell them, Call Kathie. I want to come to the next health fair. And I had to explain to them, look, this is not helpful to everybody on the team, but every year until the pandemic, which I don't know what happened to him after that, but until the pandemic, Every year he would try to get involved in the health fair. So to vet your vendors properly, you need to interview them. You need to ask them certain questions and find out what they do and how they do it and maybe search them on the internet and see how they work and how they operate. If they have a membership, if they promote that membership, that type of thing. And it's not going to take a lot of your time. A lot of times my HR directors get kind of leery about a health fair because they start thinking this is going to take a lot of time and I save you a lot of time with my health fair checklist. You can download that. Just send me a message or leave a comment below and I'll be happy to send that right over to you. And mistake number three, it has to do with the checklist actually and is not having a plan. A plan that's going to really And make sure that you follow all of your steps and make sure that you vet your vendors, that you reach out to your vendors a certain days before the event because I had people who wouldn't show up and I was stuck with an empty table. They didn't even give me an excuse, they just didn't show up. So that kind of left me. a bad taste in my mouth about them and they weren't invited back of course, but you just kind of got to know and you kind of got to remind them and you kind of got to tell them and also a lot of if you if you have this amenity we provide them with free lunch we provide them with free tea and water and those types of things and just the amenities that we could actually give them. Another thing I do is if you are a service like Some of the companies that I work with are pharmaceutical companies, and so they provide their samples of their products, and they can also use those to, for their, for their clients and their vendors. And you can have a wide array of vendors. I have as, I have a veterinarian, a vet come in, you know, a doctor that's for animals. I have them come in and they help as well. And then I also have like a dentist, a chiropractor, a physician, a mental health specialist, the supplement place, the med spa, and those are also listed in the checklist as well, which will hopefully save you some time. And don't make the same mistakes that I did. And so I, I alluded to a bonus as well. And that bonus is the fact that I have wellness days once a month. And I usually have a calendar. You may have seen me post it in, in the group here or online. Cause I post it also in my social media and it has different prompts for the month. And I usually have a theme like mindfulness. Financial health. Um, sleep has been a one of them as well. And what I do is I'll use the theme for the calendar for the wellness day as well. And so what I will do is if it's a sleep day, I had the calm app like big display because we also use the calm app with some of the businesses that I work with. And it's really good way to get the team involved in wellness. And it's also a way to kind of just keep your name at the top on their health and wellness days so that they have questions. I take a lot of the team's questions and I'll use that for a topic of the month. And it's really helpful and it kind of keeps you in the loop of what's going on inside the business as well as just kind of, um, keep your wellness up. Top of mind. And keep your team engaged because what happens in wellness programs is a lot of teams do not get engaged in the programs because you don't know what they want and it helps to just be open to that and then also use the wellness days to your advantage. So, If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. I'll be happy to help. And I would also be happy to share my health fair checklist with you as well to help you plan your next health fair or even your wellness day. Just to start with the baby steps. I have a health fair once a year and then I have wellness days once a month and then you, Tuesday of this week I helped a company plan their Charity Awareness Day. So they're real big involved in the community and they work with several different charities. So I set this up just like a health fair. And I had the different charities that they sponsor come into the building and also take part. Talk about what they do for the community in case somebody needs their services, which was also a wellness thing, and then also to see how you can help inside the charity as well if you wanted to volunteer your time, which brought awareness to the different charities that are in the community as well as community service is a very good. program as well. So I thought that was pretty fun. And the vendors were really fun and helpful and we found other ways we could work together. So that is a wellness idea. And it just changed another way that I work with companies as well. So, um, I am a corporate wellness coach. I have a group coaching program that I open Two, three times a year and you can join that group coaching program if you're interested in that. I would love to get on a call with you and see if we are a fit. I'll be happy to discuss your wellness initiatives that you have going on inside the company because I'm always open to learning. Anyways, that is my live episode for today. I will be posting another poll to see what else y'all might want to be talking about. But I think next week, I'm going to talk about mindfulness inside class. As a corporate wellness director or even a human resources director and how you can apply that to your team as well. Okay. If you have any questions, be sure to send me a message or leave a comment below. I'll be happy to help. All right. Have a great day.