The University of Michigan has been fine-tuning its wellness champion network for over 20 years. Over that time, wellness champs have morphed in number and organizational role, but have always played an important role for helping to develop our culture of health across the University," explains Karen Schmidt, associate director of wellness and health culture at the University of Michigan. We need additional people who are working in the unit to help spread the word on wellness, the importance of healthy behaviors and to share information about our program."
The university currently has 356 champions spread across four campuses and reaching over 40,000 faculty and staff. Champions are nominated for two-year appointments by supervisors. Employees can also nominate themselves with their supervisors approval. This ensures that managers can support the champs efforts and time encouraging wellness and attending an annual retreat. The network is flexible so that some champions have worked in the role consistently for 15 to 20 years, while others have taken breaks and returned later, depending on their workload.
Over the course of their two-year appointment, champions follow four steps to motivate employees under their purview, following the acronym ACES:
Announcing to the work unit that they are the wellness champion.
Check. Next, champions follow a workplace wellness checklist to identify any issues in their area and ways to improve. A staff of five wellness program coordinators work with champions to design the checklist and from there, to create and execute an action plan.
Execute. Champions choose one action item from their checklist, such as introducing lunch-and-learns on stress management or implementing breathing and stretching breaks.
Share. Champions share their successes and challenges, as well as bounce ideas off each other, on the companys Web portal created specifically for them, by email and at the annual retreat.
Champions at the University of Michigan have organized group walks, healthy potlucks and even flash mobs. Some even spontaneously start a line dance to get people up and moving during a meeting.
We try to keep things as fresh and sustainable as possible. We look to connect our programs as much as we can," says Schmidt. For example, they want to transition people from one wellness event to the next and keep healthy action sustainable with fun campaigns.
This year, the university is rolling out a wellness grant program with a total of $5,000 to give to champion sites. If the champ completes the four steps of the program they can apply for a grant and pitch wellness ideas for their unit. Money to realize new initiatives will be awarded during their next retreat this summer.
