"Not 50, but 75 percent of vitality budgets in business are wasted money." This was one of the statements I presented to the audience last Tuesday at the conference of the Vitality Network. The afternoon's topic: the return on vitality.
Despite the fact that the vitality of your organization is essential to its success and, more importantly, survival, many companies still treat it as a necessary evil.
You can compare it to marketing in that respect. In the beginning, that was also mostly about coming up with fancy campaigns. "Half of my advertising budget is wasted money, I just don't know which half," said the American marketer John Wanamaker some 100 years ago.
These days, marketing is much more about the data. Targeting the right audience, through the best channels, in the right tone. And getting them to take action. But that's still really a step too far for many companies.
There are seriously still companies that think you can reduce the feeling of excessive workload by offering fruit in the office. That you can combat burnout with a workshop About workload. Or that the use of [cheap coaches](https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/opinie/column/5021036/coach-coaches-groei-advies-goed-slecht-rambam-leiderschap#:~:text=Nederland currently has 65,000 coaches,chart consequences). can motivate their expensive staff.
Yet other reports are also becoming more frequent. The FD recently headlined That more and more companies are reimbursing things like (boxing) coaching and yoga retreats for their employees. A step in the right direction and super to show off on job postings, but they still remain individual solutions. While you build a vital organization together, not per individual. Moreover, these are all short-term and disjointed initiatives, often not in line with the company's vision or story.
Another challenge is terminology. Vitality, and therefore many [vitality programs](https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/opinie/column/5213420/vitaliteit-werkvloer-versterken-wat-werkt-niet-tips-dos-donts#:~:text=De biggest reason why at,plaster on the wrong wound)., has kind of ended up in the corner of yoga, mindfulness and stress management. Some of the colleagues goes all in on this. The bulk shudders at hearing these terms. "Very nice, but more something for my partner/ colleague/ whoever, as long as I don't have to."
If anything is organized at all, it is often untraceable in the internal digital maze of company pages, intranets and Sharepoints. And so well-intentioned initiatives reach only a handful of colleagues.
The things that are offered are not measured and there is hardly any research into their effectiveness or areas for improvement. If there is time for that at all, and programs are not immediately replaced for something else or dropped altogether because "we did something about vitality last year anyway.
Behavior change, because that's what it's ultimately about, takes time. And positivity. The programs must be easy to find, well promoted (so not just via an email). You want commitment from the leadership and lots of repetition over a longer period of time.
Simply put, you would go a long way by defining the following 4 steps:
Orientation - What do I want to achieve? How are we going to measure that? Where do we stand now? Are we going for prevention (prevention) or amplification (making good people even better)? What target groups do we have within the organization? What timeline?
Activation - One size doesn't fit all, though we all get busier and busier. How do you make sure your program fits within those full schedules? How do you hook the leadership? Who are your ambassadors? What does your promotional campaign look like?
Evaluation - Did we achieve our goals? What went well? What could be improved? What are the costs/benefits (ROI)?
Optimization - Incorporate the insights from the previous step into the remainder of your program. Adjust and repeat your goals as needed.
It's all not rocketscience, but if you go through these steps you will soon go from 75 percent wasted, to 75 percent vital. And then you don't have to wait 100 years for that.
