WELCOA Membership FAQs
I’m new to wellness, where should I start?
Welcome to the wellness industry, you’ll find it’s an incredibly rewarding field. The best plan of action for new WELCOA members and wellness professionals is to go through the course—WELCOA’s Seven Benchmarks to Creating a Results Oriented Wellness Program. It’s approximately 6 hours of training and helps you jump right into the proper plan and execution of a wellness program. You’ll find this course packed with information and templates for a full wellness plan, budget guidance, wellness team instructions and more useful information to get started quickly without recreating the wheel.
What is the WELCOA Resource Center?
When it comes to launching and developing successful wellness programs, we like to emphasize—there’s no need to re-create the wheel! WELCOA Members maximize their time by selecting from hundreds of proven WELCOA Member Resources.
Health promotion and wellness professionals turn to WELCOA for everything they need to design their program from a strategic perspective—wellness operating plans, wellness budget tools and dashboard reporting templates. Plus, they rely on WELCOA for resources they can use as they work directly with wellness program participants—health newsletters, educational materials, lunch and learn presentations and challenges.
Do you have anything I can provide my employees?
Yes, WELCOA offers hundreds of educational resources to WELCOA Members. These resources are designed for you to use within your own organization. Our most popular resources for employees are the Employee Health Bulletins. Select from a library of more than 40 educational newsletters on blood pressure, sugar, heart disease, stress, cholesterol and diabetes.
Does WELCOA offer any challenges/behavior changes/incentive campaigns?
When it comes to challenges, WELCOA has you covered. There are more than 10 topics to select from. All WELCOA Challenges include:
- Training Guides for wellness professionals
- Professionally designed promotional materials (posters, emails, intranet graphics)
- Participant Launch Letters
- Participant Educational Packet
- Employee Resources
- Motivational Messages
- Evaluation Forms
What is the WELCOA Institute?
The WELCOA Institute is a one-of-a-kind learning platform available to WELCOA Members. It is a self-contained on-demand learning solution that allows WELCOA Members to complete WELCOA Certifications. Anytime. Anywhere.
How much does it cost to take the WELCOA Trainings?
The good news is that once you are a WELCOA Member, there is no additional cost to participate in WELCOA Trainings. You may take as many courses and complete as many WELCOA Certifications as you would like.
What is the difference between Certificate and Non-Certificate courses?
Certificate courses are longer and more difficult to complete. They average around 4 hours of content and about 45 quiz questions. By completing four Certificate courses, you automatically earn the prestigious WELCOA Faculty designation.
Non-Certificate courses are shorter and easier to complete. They average around 1 hour of content and about 15 quiz questions. By completing four Non-Certificate courses, you automatically earn a “Current Events” certificate—bringing you one step closer to earning your WELCOA Faculty status!
How do I complete a course on the Institute?
In 3 simple steps! You must finish watching all the videos in a course, pass the course quiz then complete the course evaluation. These steps must be completed in order before you can begin the next step.
Becoming WELCOA Certified demonstrates your commitment to workplace wellness. This certification gives you both the tools, knowledge and critical competencies to manage, plan, design and implement and measure workplace wellness programs. Choose from a variety of Workplace Wellness Certifications, Nutrition Certifications, Stress-Management Certifications and Fitness Certifications.
What does it mean to be WELCOA Faculty?
WELCOA Faculty designation demonstrates exceptional commitment and dedication to pursuing excellence in workplace wellness. WELCOA Faculty members are poised to address a higher level of challenges faced in today’s organizations: containing health care costs, improving productivity within healthy employees, reducing the costs of injury on the job and engaging employees in long-term well-being.
REQUIREMENTS: Completion of four Certificate Course (approximately 24 hours of on-going training within a 2 year period).
What is the difference between WELCOA Certified and WELCOA Faculty?
WELCOA Certified is the entry-level Certification program offered from WELCOA. As you commit to wellness, most members move beyond WELCOA Certified to becoming WELCOA Faculty. WELCOA Faculty equips you with a higher level of wellness information.
What is the Well Workplace Award? Is there a deadline to apply?
The recognizes quality and excellence in health promotion across the nation. Four designations of the Well Workplace Award are possible to achieve—Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. For more information and application deadlines, please click here.
How do we keep employees engaged in the wellness program?
Keeping employees engaged in a wellness program is critical. WELCOA has resources specifically that address engagement and offers WELCOA Training to help you increase participation in the wellness program.
Stress is a major area we can work on, how can WELCOA help?
Regardless of the organization, everyone can use help in decreasing stress. Here are some great courses on the topic that come highly recommended by WELCOA members. In addition, feel free to look at WELCOA Resources which will contain education for your employees on how to handle stressful situations.
