I recently attended a Human Resource Association of Nova Scotia (HRANS) workshop entitled "Creating an Effective Employee Wellness Program". This workshop drew participants from the Human Resource departments of a wide variety of public and private sector organizations. My objective was to understand the scope and prevalence of workplace wellness programs and their relevance to the initiatives I typically recommend to clients while working to increase their organizational effectiveness.

Workplace wellness programs appear to be gaining acceptance as an effective means to enhance the culture of organizations, assist with employee recruitment and retention efforts and improve the health and safety of

employees. The financial impact of the latter motive can readily be measured in terms of productivity loss due to employee illness and dollars spent on health benefit plans (short and long term disability as well as drug plan costs) for employees.

As with any organizational initiative or investment, success is dependent on leadership commitment, planning, implementation and evaluation and subsequent program adjustment. It is important that the leadership not rest back with a "we did our part" attitude when faced with less than spectacular results on some facets of the program. Wellness programs should be designed and refined to change with the organization, ensuring employees do realize the anticipated benefits.

There is a critical caveat to espousing the effectiveness of wellness programs, however. When an organization is experiencing issues such as being immersed in conflict; a hostile work environment is stressing the employees; or they are struggling with an unrealistic workload or insufficient resources, then the benefits of a wellness program will be temporary, at best. A wellness program will not solve the underlying stress factors, but may help the employee feel better working in such an environment for a short period of time. Therefore, organizations are wise to deal with process and conflict issues before embarking on a wellness program, or at least in conjunction with such an initiative.

* Debby Scribner's consulting practice area includes organizational conflict remediation as well as organizational effectiveness

NOVUS conducted a feasibility study looking at the expansion and location options for Fredericton's York Sunbury Museum, currently located in a climatically unacceptable 18th century heritage building.

Key alternatives included whether to renovate the existing building, expand to another site and/or construct a new facility. We conducted stakeholder interviews, completed 10 external benchmark assessments, and looked at options for upgraded facilities. We concluded that the museum should be housed in a new building contiguous with the historic structure. We confirmed the museum's heritage themes, and recommended forming business oriented governance and management structures.