How to Become a Corporate Wellness Coach
Corporate health coaching is a fast-growing niche. If you’re interested in impacting thousands of lives with your work and enjoying a steady income, this could be the perfect opportunity for you.
A knowledgeable wellness coach can help participants understand their biometric screening results. They can also provide motivation, accountability and professional guidance to achieve the results they want.
Motivation
Wellness coaches are brought into a corporate environment to help people improve or maintain their health and wellness goals. Different than a nutritionist or athletic coach who might assign someone a diet and exercise plan, wellness coaches focus on guiding their clients based on personalized individual preferences to support them in making better choices. They can help lower health care costs, reduce absenteeism and contribute to productivity and employee morale.
Motivation is key for anyone looking to change anything in their life. Whether it’s losing weight, exercising more or lowering stress levels, motivation is a crucial part of the process.
As a wellness coach, your daily duties will vary greatly depending on the needs of each client. You may be leading departmental wellness workshops, working with individual clients on personalized wellness plans, or building scalable coaching programs in Trainerize. Whatever the case, it’s essential to have a strong network and good relationships with HR leaders, company execs, and regular employees.
Accountability
Accountability means being able to explain why you did or didn’t do something. It also means being willing to receive feedback and evaluate yourself, even if it hurts. If you’re not accountable, it’s hard to change your behavior and improve yourself.
Wellness coaches provide accountability by following up on the goals and progress of their clients. They also offer support and encouragement to keep employees on track with their wellness goals. They also help to identify underlying problems such as stress, sleep issues or unhealthy eating habits that can lead to chronic health conditions.
In addition to coaching, corporate wellness programs can include services such as biometric screening events, nutrition programs, behavioral health coaching, tobacco cessation support and disease management. These programs are designed to reduce absenteeism and improve employee productivity and performance. By implementing these strategies, companies can lower their healthcare costs and avoid premium rate increases in the future. They can also save on employee absenteeism, presenteeism and workplace injury claims.
Education
Wellness programs are a great way to increase employee motivation and, over time, lead to higher productivity. By improving the health and wellbeing of employees, corporate companies can also lower the risk of sickness absence, workplace accidents, and increased healthcare costs.
To be an effective corporate wellness coach, it’s important to have a diverse range of skills. A background in health coaching, nutrition, kinesiology, or psychology is good. A health-related degree is even better and can help you narrow your focus towards a particular niche within the industry.
You should also get some real-life experience in the field. Working with a handful of clients will allow you to develop your knowledge base, gain confidence, and sharpen your coaching skills. Then, once you’re ready to make the jump, consider earning a certification from a leading body. This is an important step that demonstrates your credibility to larger corporations. Adding this credential to your portfolio will open up opportunities for you to grow your business.
Research
Research is a significant part of the job for corporate wellness coaches, as they need to know how to design programs that are effective for their company’s population and culture. A corporate wellness coach may use questionnaires, polls and risk assessment tests to determine the best programs to offer.
Corporate wellness coaches are trained in helping employees set and achieve health and fitness goals. These goals can help reduce employee absenteeism, increase productivity and overall morale. Many employees who participate in worksite wellness programs are eager to make lifestyle changes and see the benefits of a healthier life.
Wellness coaches are able to help them achieve these goals and learn how to maintain them over time. They can also review biometric screenings with their clients and explain what the results mean for their health outlook. This can reinforce the value of a company’s investment in the screening program.