Awards

WELCOA Awards

2017 National Well Workplace Award

The hospital earned WELCOA’s Gold designation once again in 2017 by achieving 177.9 points out of a possible 180. Gold Well Workplaces are companies that have successfully built comprehensive worksite wellness initiatives and are demonstrating and documenting concrete outcomes. According to the WELCOA website, they awarded 47 awards to 47 companies and organizations in 2017, awarding five Platinum, 32 Gold, 7 Silver, 0 Bronze and 3 Small Business awards.

2014 National Well Workplace Award

Community Hospital received the National Well Workplace Award from WELCOA, the Wellness Council of America in September. The hospital received the Gold designation earning 177.42 points out of a possible 180. Gold Well Workplaces are companies that have successfully built comprehensive worksite wellness initiatives and are demonstrating and documenting concrete outcomes.

Community Hospital revamped its Wellness for Life program in 2012 due to the changing climate of healthcare and the need for employee wellness, according to Sarah Wolford, Community Hospital Wellness Coordinator. The hospital introduced an online portal in 2013 which offers employees the opportunity to stay engaged with an active and healthy lifestyle year-round. This portal also offers monthly newsletters, point tracking with healthy choices, and lifestyle-changing challenges. Within the portal Community Hospital employees take a health risk assessment which helps them evaluate their overall wellness. After taking the assessment employees are given a comprehensive report which lists their strengths, opportunities, and suggestions for lifestyle changes. “It is the mission of Community Hospital to make wellness a part of our employees’ everyday culture,” Wolford said.

Located in Omaha, WELCOA, or the Wellness Council of America, was founded over two decades ago as a resource for the nation’s employers to turn to for building and sustaining results-oriented workplace wellness programs. WELCOA has developed the Seven Benchmarks of Success (7 C’s)—a copyrighted and trademarked process where organizations can learn to build and sustain results-oriented workplace wellness programs.

“WELCOA defines a ‘well workplace’ as an organization that fully embraces its responsibility for maximizing the health and well-being of its employees,” according to Wolford. “They also say a Well Workplace award winning organization shows evidence that employee wellness has become part of the overall business strategy. In a Well Workplace Award winning organization, the vision of protecting and enhancing the health and well-being of each and every employee becomes part of the very fabric of the organization—not something extraneous and peripheral to the core business functions.”

The award offers four designations or levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Application criteria for each of these designations are based upon progressive development and implementation of an organization’s wellness initiative within the context of seven critical benchmarks, shown to produce results in organizations of all sizes and industry types. The seven critical benchmarks include:

  • Capturing CEO Support
  • Creating Cohesive Wellness Teams
  • Collecting Data to Drive Health Efforts
  • Crafting an Operating Plan
  • Choosing Appropriate Interventions
  • Creating a Supportive Environment
  • Consistently Evaluating Outcomes