The Relationship of Workplace Health Climate and Participation in an Employee Wellness Program

Abstract

Employee wellness programs provide numerous benefits for employers and employees, however, achieving high participation is critical to their success. Workplace health climate, a measure of perceptions of support and environmental conditions, has been shown to influence participation in wellness programs. Thus, our study’s primary aim was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between workplace health climate and participation in an employee wellness program. The inquiry design was a needs assessment utilizing a 16-item survey. Respondents consisted of 1618 employees of a public university. Differences in workplace health climate scores based on wellness program participation, sex, and university company were compared and contrasted. There was a significant difference in total scores between wellness program participants 3.85 and non-participants 3.74, p-value 0.007. There were also significant differences in total scores among the three primary companies. The Academic Division had a mean total score of 3.90, the Physicians Group had a score of 3.81, and the Medical Center had a score of 3.70, p-value<0.001. There were no significant differences in total scores between sexes, p-value 0.153. The findings from our investigation support earlier research and suggest a favorable workplace health climate is associated with employees’ participation in wellness programs. Additionally, workplace health climate can vary among business units and suggest a more favorable health climate might be attained by addressing employees’ perceptions of organizational support. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the constituent elements of workplace health climate, and their association with participation in wellness programs.