Making Wellness the Easy Option

Communication Builds Engagement

A well-designed plan for signage can instantly and effectively communicate the overall presence of an employee wellness program. At UBS, a comprehensive signage program was developed to educate guests on caloric information as well as tips on how to eat healthier at each station in the café.

“Signage helps us to promote healthy eating and educate our employees without turning them away,” says Tucker.

Signage also plays a big role in Overlook’s employee wellness program. Its Summit Fit Club relies on the Guiding Stars nutrition guidance program, an approach originally developed for the retail grocery shopping industry. It helps diners identify nutritious choices with ratings that gauge the nutritional value of every available item in the facility, including hot and cold prepared foods, salad bar, grab-and-go items and beverages.

“It makes earning points for healthy choices easy,” says Atanasio, who worked as a trained chef earlier in his career. “We still serve the double bacon cheeseburger with fries, and if an employee wants to have that, it's available. But a choice like that won’t earn any points.”

Guiding Stars has also found success at a number of other onsite operations such as Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County, NJ, and University of New Hampshire Dining Services in Durham, NH.

“We took the program a step further by pairing it with our rewards-based incentive program,” says Atanasio, who worked closely with the hospital’s POS system provider to adapt its software for the Summit Fit Club.

Within weeks of its launch, more than 375 employees had signed up.

“We’ve done extensive marketing to make employees aware of the club,” says Atanasio. “We have digital signage at the lines to explain how the program works and have informed employees about the program via email blasts and physical flyers distributed in interoffice mail."