Barriers and Facilitators to Employee Engagement With the Employee Whole Health Program Within the Veterans Affairs...

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a leader in providing innovative wellness programming to its employees. However, like many organizations, VA faces ongoing challenges fostering employee engagement. This national, formative evaluation aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to the implementation of employee wellness programming at multiple sites.

We used a novel quality improvement approach to uncover barriers and facilitators to employee engagement with employee wellness programs. We conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with key partners at 8 independent VA sites. Identified barriers and facilitators were coded and analyzed using a quality improvement framework for the cause-and-effect analysis.

Based on the cause-and-effect analysis, we generated recommendations to enhance employee engagement. Recommendations included incorporating wellness into orientation, diversifying communication, hiring devoted leaders, developing whole health-oriented mission statements, constructing comprehensive whole person wellness measures, and promoting a holistic wellness culture.

This multisite evaluation generated collaborative insights from key partners with diverse perspectives of the employee wellness program implementation process. Organizations can adopt this evaluation model to assess and refine their own employee wellness initiatives, identifying both challenges and successes to drive engagement. VA has invested significant resources to support employees via the Employee Whole Health Program. To improve employee engagement with the wellness programming, we recommend promoting employee input, agency, and participation in shaping the programs mission.