The Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist (CCWS) Program, designed by the Corporate Health and Wellness Association, is a pioneering employee benefits and wellness course containing best practices from leading employers such as LinkedIn, PepsiCo, Delta Air Lines, Gallagher, and more. The Corporate Wellness Magazine sat down with a recent graduate of the CCWS program, Chris MacKoul, to learn how he has benefited from the course. Chris is a Program Manager at Lulafit, a wellness and wellness amenities service.
Q: How Important Is Well-Being to You Personally?
Chris: Well-being is a central driving force in many aspects of my life. One of the major motivators for joining Lulafit, my current employer, was the well-being ethos that Lulafit created and our five spokes of well-being: Empower, Move, Connect, Nourish, & Restore. Holistically, acknowledging that well-being is not just physical, but a multi-faceted approach to our lives has made a huge difference in how clients react and engage in healthy behaviors.
Q: What Change Have You Noticed Over the Last Year In Corporate Wellness?
Chris: Corporate wellness is seeing changes like no other time. We are seeing shifts from traditional work-from-office models to hybrid work models or even some divisions and companies switching entirely to a work-from-home model. The corporate wellness culture must follow suit. Wellness initiatives are changing to address well-being from a different perspective: How can you bring traditional wellness from well-equipped office amenity spaces into employee homes? Some wellness apps are taking the forefront of these efforts, like our Lulafit app, virtually bringing physical and mental health to employees.
Q: Where do you see the industry headed?
Chris: More and more, we are seeing employees demanding wellness programs as part of their benefits package. The job market has been very active in the past year, and many employees are searching for wellness incentives and initiatives from new employers. I believe we'll be seeing more wellness programs outside of conventional physical health, including mental health, community health, and personal growth and empowerment initiatives for employees.
Q: What are the most important focus areas for you in corporate wellness for the upcoming year?
Chris: Above anything else, we want to engage our client base to participate in wellness initiatives and healthy behaviors. Whether this means running or walking each day, using our Lulafit app to take a virtual fitness class, meditation, choosing healthier sources of food and energy, or reconnecting with loved ones, we want to see that our clients and employees are taking steps in their lives to promote healthy living. The most important focus area for us is to find ways to enable healthy choices for employees through wellness initiatives and programs, making wellness easy and accessible.
Q: If you could give our readers one piece of advice in regards to wellness programs, what would it be?
Chris: The more holistic the wellness initiative, the easier adoption will be! Rather than different solutions for three separate areas of well-being, try to find one initiative that will address them all.
Q: Why did you go through the CCWS program?
Chris: I have worked in health and wellness for over a decade but rarely engaged groups larger than ten individuals at a time. I wanted to learn how to create and implement wellness initiatives on a larger scale and promote well-being for bigger populations. This program was very informative and gave me resources I still use all the time today!
Q: What was the most valuable takeaway of the CCWS program for you?
Chris: This program provided me with invaluable knowledge on creating, measuring, and evaluating wellness initiatives and programs. Much of this course echoed what I learned in my Master of Public Health curriculum and put it into a different, tangible perspective. It was almost like taking the theory I already knew and taught me how to apply it in real-life scenarios.
If you are interested in the CCWS course, you can find more information here. To keep up with the latest and most powerful trends in corporate wellness and employer healthcare and benefits, register for the Healthcare Revolution conference for free. It is America's largest event for self-funded employer healthcare, benefits, and well-being. Registrants can look forward to executive speakers from Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, Royal Caribbean, MarineMax, Mercer, Willis Towers Watson, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and more. We hope to see you between April 26-27 for an event filled with keynotes, pressing debates, expert panels, advanced workshops, and more.
