Help Your Employees Stay Healthy Year-Round With a Mid-Year Resolution Evaluation

June is right around the corner—how did that happen? Not too long ago, we were raising our glass toasting to the New Year. Welcoming this “breath of fresh air” month, June encourages us to look outward, towards outdoor activities, family gatherings and soaking in the long summer days ahead.

It’s also a great time to reflect on those new year resolutions we set back in January. As an employer, June is a perfect time to encourage your employees to take stock, re-establish goals and reward themselves for positive strides thus far. Providing a strategy to keep moving, get restarted, or overcome a plateau can help your employees re-engage and continue on a path towards better health and wellness.

Here are three simple ways your employees can re-energize and refocus on their 2017 resolutions:

Sit Down and Evaluate

The first step in performing a mid-year check-in is to actually take the time to evaluate where you are at. Treat this check-in like any other appointment on your schedule; it will reaffirm the importance of setting goals and assessing progress. By blocking off 30 minutes to evaluate what goals were set in January you can measure what progress has been made, what challenges or barriers may have presented itself, and most importantly, whether or not the goal is still relevant.

Break it Down

This is called “drilling down” in the business world, so let’s do the same with our health and wellbeing strategy. During the check-in session, write down the goals and prioritize by importance and relevance. Some goals may no longer be important or they’ve been accomplished. No resting on your laurels! It’s time to set new goals. For example, if a goal was to set aside time for exercise before work and now it’s become routine, consider scheduling time for meditation or to read a new article on a wellbeing topic of interest each week. If there was a challenge discovered as part of the goal assessment, break that down into components to address. Not finding time to work on a nutrition goal? Lacking knowledge of how to get started? Need help shopping and/or cooking for healthier meals? Once the challenges are discovered, drill down to the core of what needs to be addressed and set a deadline to follow-up and reassess progress.

Look in the Rear View Mirror

Taking a look back at what was successful will help to continue that progress moving forward. The mid-year check-in provides an opportunity to examine what was working in January and form a direct comparison with June. Commitment to goals in January may have been easier because of the energy around the new year to be filled with healthy promises. If goals need to be re-energized, check out websites like Spark People that have communities of like-minded individuals, looking to set— and accomplish—healthy goals. Fitness trackers, phone apps and social media all have creative and individualized programming, often for little or no cost.

Like any strategic plan, encouraging and supporting employee health and wellbeing requires commitment, planning and continual assessment of progress. Keep up the momentum with ongoing check-in reminders to help their health improvement goals stay on track.

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