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Great wellness management tips, new ideas and sound answers to wellness professionals’ questions flow every month from those who share their know-how on the Wellness Manager Discussion Group.

Following are some top tips from recent posts to the Group:

Question on program ideas for a "holiday weigh-in."

I wanting to do the weigh-ins in groups and weigh groups of individuals on our plant's truck or pallet scales. Any ideas or has anyone else done a program like this?

Answers:

"I am just finishing up a program where we competed as teams to become the "Biggest Loser" and weighed in on the large animal scales at our local vet. I would be happy to help you answer any questions that you may have. Overall we have had great success the program."

"I haven't heard of weighing groups on pallet scales, but it sounds like it could be fun.

Are you proposing competing teams? PEERtrainer (www.peertrainer.com) can help you with tracking and motivation. Consider having separate, sponsored (modest subscription fee) or un-sponsored (free) teams. Groups can post group (or individual) weights, photos, etc to keep enthusiasm up.

Team members can sign on with their own names or with made-up names for anonymity. Members of each team can read each others’ logs and cheer them on with their weight loss or provide them tips if they plateau. The site also provides other great tools, such as a calorie wiki where people can post their favorite foods for later downloading into their food logs. It is easy and convenient to use and available 24/7. All you need is internet access.

We are told by participants that daily logging and team member feedback is a powerful adjunct to their weight loss efforts. We have lots of testimonials from folks who have lost quite a bit of weight (30 to 100 pounds and more)"

Question on flu shots:

"My company is looking into doing flu shots for employees, but didn't know if companies are also purchasing them for their spouses and families as well?"

Answers:

"I work for a school district in Pennsylvania. We offered our flu shots to staff members only."

"Hi! As a provider for flu shots in the Sacramento area, some of my client companies paid for spouses and families to get the shots. Employers don't have to provide the vaccine for family members; however, it is a nice gesture to help with morale and retention."

"For the past several years, most of my corporate clients have paid 100% for employees' flu shots, and made them available to spouses, but had spouses pay for theirs out of pocket."

"We offer flu shots to all 'eligible' employees.’Eligible' in our case 50% or more who are eligible for benefits. We do not offer the service to spouses, dependents or retirees (which we have a lot of ...).

When we have the full order of vaccine we give about 700-800 over a two week period."

"Our flu shots are covered by our health insurer. You may want to check with your health insurers to see if they cover flu shots at the worksite as well as in the community for their members. For example, an employee could be covered at the worksite and their dependents could be covered at a community site such as a pharmacy, grocery store, church etc."

Question on using Visa gift cards as incentives:

"Can anyone recommend a Visa gift card company? I am using gift cards to incent employees (without insurance through the company) for participating in our annual health risk appraisal.

"I'm specifically looking for a gift card company where we can customize the gift card with our company logo and personalized message.

Answers:

"We use Hallmark. It allows the employee the choice of choosing the vendor that they want to make the purchase and makes it easy for us so we aren't mailing gift cards across the country."

"I believe Bank of America does something like that as well as Citibank (Citi Healthcare Solutions)."

"eCount does this. Also, AMEX but they are pricy. IncentOne, Hallmark and Giftcertificates.com are other incentive vendors (online and paper based gift certificates)"

"We use a great vendor who is very responsive and understands our goals with the wellness program. The cards can be customized with your logo and tagline.

They offer two types of cards - one is a one-time use/disposable card and the other is imprinted with the recipients name and can be "reloaded" with funds. We use the reloadable cards and simple add dollars to the card each time additional incentives are earned.

More than 1,200 wellness professionals with a variety of titles are members of the Wellness Manager Discussion Group, hosted and sponsored by Wellness Program Management Advisor and WellnessJunction.com. Membership is free.

To join your colleagues, visit: www.wellnessjunction.com/forum/