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Keeping the bottom line up front Bottom Line Up Front in Corporate Health Promotion Program will help you get and sustain Senior Management support. A Bottom Line Up Front approach will also help you more realistically measure the impact of your Corporate Health Promotion Program.

The bottom line in Corporate Health Promotion Programs answer two primary questions:

• How will participant health be improved?

• What’s in it for Senior Management?

The ultimate bottom line: all roads should lead to readiness.

• Always be ready to communicate to leadership the ways that your Corporate Health Promotion Program impacts readiness.

• Think like Senior Management: what Corporate Health Promotion Program outcomes will be important from a Senior Management point of view?

• Develop line-centered language that communicates those outcomes.

• Ask members how they think a particular Corporate Health Promotion Program enhances force readiness. This input is a valuable source of information.

Use the following steps as a Bottom Line Up Front approach to Corporate Health Promotion Programs.

Step 1: Think about the end of the Corporate Health Promotion Program first and plan backwards.

• It has been said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

• Before planning or beginning any part of the Corporate Health Promotion Program, be able to answer the questions: how will participant health be improved? What’s in it for Senior Management?

Step 2: Identify concrete Corporate Health Promotion Program outcomes.

• Identify up front what the Corporate Health Promotion Program is working towards.

o For example: will members lose weight? Walk more steps? Decrease injuries? Move to another stage of change?

• Identify any processes or procedures that will be improved.

o For example: which pharmacy operations will become more efficient? How will record-keeping be streamlined?

Step 3: Determine what will be measured to show that Corporate Health Promotion Program goals were achieved.

• Consider what information is really needed to show Corporate Health Promotion Program effectiveness. Avoid the temptation to collect every possible piece of data. Choose a handful of important information points and stick to those.

• Think backwards when deciding what information to collect – consider how easily follow-up information can be collected when a Corporate Health Promotion Program ends. Getting follow-up information is often a challenge.

• Only collect information for health behaviors or indicators that the Corporate Health Promotion Program actually affected.

o For example: if the main Corporate Health Promotion Program goal is that members will walk more steps, then it may be better NOT to choose changes in cholesterol level as a Corporate Health Promotion Program outcome (unless the Corporate Health Promotion Program specifically addresses cholesterol).

• Avoid measuring outcomes that the Corporate Health Promotion Program cannot (or did not) affect.

Step 4: Determine what Corporate Health Promotion Program elements must be included to move members towards the Corporate Health Promotion Program goals.

• The concrete Corporate Health Promotion Program outcomes identified in Step 2 are the compass for keeping the Corporate Health Promotion Program on track. All Corporate Health Promotion Program elements should lead towards that ultimate goal.

Working backwards when planning and beginning Corporate Health Promotion Programs is really forward thinking. Keeping the bottom line up front is a smart approach to Corporate Health Promotion Programs.