An American health solutions company claims that the power of social connections can help employee wellness programmes become more successful.

StayWell has unveiled a downloadable resource for employers that provides guidance on how to harness the power of social connections to improve employee wellness programmes.

The guide, “Building a wellness champion network: how to harness the power of social connections to create a lasting culture of health,” aims to show how an effectively designed employee-led wellness champion network can help increase awareness, understanding, participation and the overall success of an employee health and wellness programme.

A wellness champion network is a group of employees who work together to improve the health and culture of the workplace in conjunction with an employer-sponsored workplace health management programme, by socially connecting with others through the programme and also helping to educate coworkers about programme offerings.

“An employee wellness programme will deliver better outcomes if there is widespread buy-in and support for the programme at all levels of the company,” said Lesley Lesch, senior director of account management for StayWell.

“This is when the programme stops being a programme and becomes deeply ingrained in the company culture.”