Leadership and Motivational Techniques for a Wellness Program

You are the manager of the accounting department at Widgets R Us, a modest-sized manufacturing firm with 150 employees. You returned from a meeting with the Vice President of Human Resources, Polly Peoples. Ms. Peoples had called this meeting to inform all department managers of her new wellness plan to help improve employee productivity as well as employees' quality of life. The first stage of the program will focus on committing employees to a team activity, which will last 10 weeks. The second stage will be a long-term project, which will last for six months and focus on nutrition. The third stage of the project will complete the year and will pull together exercise and nutrition.

As the company is barely making a profit, it cannot offer financial incentives to employees to pursue any wellness goals. Instead, managers need to use various motivational strategies, including emphasizing the intrinsic benefits of wellness to encourage their employees to participate in the program. Ms. Peoples agreed to underwrite the cost of providing free pedometers to any employee who signs up for the wellness program. She also agreed to include the names of employees who successfully complete each stage of the program in the company's weekly news bulletin. This bulletin is distributed via the company's intranet server. In addition, she agreed to provide each manager $500 in petty cash to cover prizes or supplies if the manager could account for the cost. Ms. People's plan involves several stages. For now, she wants to focus on the first stage, that is, the team activity.

Introduction:

You and your employees have started the team activity. How is everyone doing? Some of your employees may be really motivated and happy with the way they look and feel. Other employees may be feeling discouraged.

Tasks:

As the manager, how will you lead your team and motivate them to continue with this first stage of the wellness program? What can you tell your employees about the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of exercise? Will you hold a team meeting and ask everyone to participate with testimonials? Will you invite a wellness speaker? Ms. Peoples wants to know your plan of action to motivate the employees. She also wants you to explain how you will set goals for the team and how you will measure the team's final results or progress against those goals. She sends you an e-mail today asking for an update. Using the leadership and controlling principles that you learned during the course, prepare a memo that should address the following points:

- Identification and explanation of the leadership style that you will use to make sure that employees continue to participate in the wellness program.
- Motivational techniques that you will use to motivate your team for the remaining part of the wellness program.
- The control mechanism that you will use to monitor the progress of the team activity.