Corporate wellness programs often include mental wellness, fitness programs, financial wellness, work-life balance, stress reduction, disease management, health screenings and health seminars. While these are all helpful in their own ways, it’s also important to address daily nutrition to ensure employees can maintain their physical and mental health and remain productive on the job.

This is why one of the most important parts of a successful corporate wellness program is and has to be nutrition. Vitamins and minerals directly affect how someone feels and their work productivity. Deficiencies of any essential nutrients eventually create nagging symptoms that rob someone of the chance to perform to their highest potential. 

You don’t have to dig too deeply to find statistics that back up the connection between nutrition and health. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 1.9 million deaths globally were attributable to high-sodium diets in 2021, making it the most impactful dietary risk. Almost 11% of all deaths in 2021 were associated with poor diet, and 30% of deaths from cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality, were attributed to poor diet.

Proper nutrition makes employees healthier, happier, and more productive by restoring nutritional status, which raises energy levels, improves concentration, and builds a stronger immune system. All these benefits lead to fewer sick days and enhanced performance at work.

Investing in nutrition-based wellness programs not only supports the personal health of employees but also contributes to the long-term success of the organization. Since food is linked with nourishment and sustenance as well as a sense of community, addressing nutrition in your corporate wellness program sends the message that you truly care about your employees.

What is Corporate Nutrition?

The term, “corporate nutrition” refers to programs and initiatives within an organization that are focused on nutrition. Their goal is to promote and improve the health and well-being of the employees.

What is a Corporate Wellness Nutrition Program?

Corporate wellness nutrition programs educate employees, support and encourage them, and offer resources so workers can improve their health and nutritional status. They may include any of the following: one-on-one consultations, webinars, presentations, nutrition challenges, and quizzes about healthier food choices. The greater the employee engagement and the desire to motivate employees to develop nutritional skills, the greater the benefit to the client will be. 

These programs can address nutrition basics such as education on macronutrients, fluid needs, balancing meals, or more in-depth topics at the request of the company or employees. The outcome of corporate nutrition programs is improved worker productivity, reduced healthcare costs, and improved employee satisfaction with their jobs.

Key Aspects of a Corporate Wellness Program

Let’s dive into some of the details of these nutrition-based programs.

Nutrition Education

The average person obtains their nutrition information from social media, internet searches, or television commercials. To help sort through the plethora of information and shed some light on nutrition, a team of nutritionists and registered dietitians prepare educational sessions for a company and their clients. Employees can learn about nutrition through presentations, workshops, online training, and seminars. 

Nutrition Counseling

Group education is intended to be generalized in order to be applicable to many, however providing more individualized education and recommendations can make the most impact. Employees can also sign up for one-on-one consultations with registered dietitian nutritionists for more personalized recommendations and support in creating a healthy lifestyle and meeting health goals. 

Healthy Eating Habits

Registered dietitians and members of any corporate wellness nutrition programs team can emphasize healthy eating habits with classes that show food samples from the available cafeteria meals and vending machines, displaying proper portion sizes or healthy customizations. 

Wellness Challenges and Incentives

After everyone is trained and has had the opportunity for one-on-one initial consultation, it’s time to step up the nutrition via wellness challenges. Wellness challenges give workers the opportunity to engage in friendly competition as a motivator to increase their vegetable consumption, reduce their dependence on sugar, lose weight, and stop eating after 6 pm each night. By trying these out in a wellness challenge, they can bond with other co-workers who can offer tips and suggestions. When companies offer prizes for completing a 15-day or 30-day wellness challenge, employees may be more motivated to achieve the goal by participating and will hopefully continue these healthy habits in their everyday lives.

Supportive Environment

Once employees begin engaging in more positive nutrition behaviors and start making lifestyle changes, they begin feeling the benefits. This causes a ripple effect in the workplace as their overall health improves. The workplace then becomes a supportive environment simply because nutrition services were available at the office during lunch.

Stress Management

Stress affects our eating habits. One person may stop eating while another person runs for comfort foods. Both scenarios may result in detrimental nutrition and health consequences. Stress management should cover prevention and explore how eating is affected by stress, as well as the role of exercise, relaxation, and meditation or prayer. It’s important to address all aspects of lifestyle that may affect implementation of nutrition changes and ability to meet health goals. 

Health Screenings and Assessments

Health screenings and assessments are important to obtain a baseline of overall health and areas that can be improved. This can help one to develop their health goals as well as assess progress. 

Benefits of Corporate Nutrition Programs

Every person benefits from nutrition programs for wellness when workers achieve their health goals. Here are some of the benefits you may see:

1. Weight Loss

Individual weight loss efforts are maximized when there’s the support of an office environment. Group participation motivates employees and reinforces what was learned in the corporate wellness programs.

2. Happier, Healthier Employees Translate to Higher Job Satisfaction

Greater job satisfaction can be expected with a corporate wellness program. In an AFLAC study, 70% of employees reported greater satisfaction on the job when participating in a corporate wellness and nutrition program. 

3. Improved Productivity

The brain requires adequate nutrients in order to enhance productivity. At MD Anderson Cancer Center, employees who implemented a healthier lifestyle resulted in 80% fewer lost work days. One study found there was a 2.73-hour increase in worker productivity after corporate wellness programs were initiated. Another study showed that those with unhealthy eating habits were 66% more likely to have poor productivity on the job.

4. Attraction and Retention of Talent

At the end of the day, offering a wellness program is an added benefit that could be the defining factor between a top candidate choosing between two companies. Furthermore, one company reported a voluntary leave rate of only 4% compared to 19% several years prior to initiation of their wellness program. 

How to Create Corporate Nutrition Programs?

Consider incorporating these initiatives into your corporate nutrition program:

1. Prioritize a Wellness Program That Offers Nutrition Education

With very little nutrition information shared in grade school and high school, people become subject to believing what they hear on social media or other platforms. Nutrition education services can help break through the nutrition and health misinformation that is prevalent in our society and teach people how to incorporate nutrition changes into their lifestyles.

2. Make Food Breaks Work-Free

It’s common under the pressure of the workday and ever-growing task list for employees to feel that taking a true lunch break away from their desk will limit their productivity. However, the benefits of taking time away from work to destress and reset are underappreciated and often lead to greater productivity in the second half of the day after refreshing your mind. 

3. Create Nutrition Challenges

Nutrition challenges offered by the company help bring cohesiveness to your company’s remote workers. Nutrition and fitness contests offer new ways of learning nutrition principles on an experiential basis.

4. Teach Meal-Planning

Meal planning and cooking are other areas that most were not exposed to in school. When employees learn how easy it is to make a meal at home without packaged foods and a microwave and how good it tastes, you just may be contributing to the next Iron Chef at your company workplace.

5. Build the Community

Everyone wants to go to a food outing, whether it’s a barbecue, luncheon, brunch, or breakfast. Bringing a food dish to share is even better, and your company could work with local businesses that offer coupons for different nutritious foods.

6. Create Healthy Employees Through Informed Goal Setting

Workers can develop chronic illnesses if their lives do not prioritize health. A comprehensive wellness program can address all their needs on a personal basis. By informing employees of healthy lifestyle targets and options, they can be empowered to set healthy lifestyle goals. 

Are Corporate Wellness Programs Worth it?

Since 2020, 81% of large companies with more than 200 employees have offered corporate wellness and well-being services that encourage a healthy lifestyle. These programs started out with tobacco cessation, gym memberships and fitness plans, and better food choices in their cafeterias.

The benefits of corporate wellness nutrition programs include better employee health, increased productivity, an enhanced and supportive workplace with higher employee satisfaction, and lower healthcare costs. In one report, the company Johnson & Johnson estimated a savings of $250 million on health care costs over 12 years after initiating their wellness program.

Additional initiatives include seminars on mindfulness, improving energy, reducing stress, and making their workplace heart-health-friendly. They have evolved in positive ways to truly improve employees’ lives.

Well-being programs can be more successful when they are more comprehensive – addressing career, social, financial, physical, and community challenges that employees commonly face. Adding nutrition classes and counseling can add a significant input into the social, physical health, and community part of their employees’ lives.

A corporate wellness program helps employers meet their bottom line, cut costs, and is a key to improving employee retention. They’re a more holistic way to view one’s workforce, treating them as fellow humans with value.