Abstract:

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify factors that associate with employees’ participation in corporate wellness programs, these factors are: personal, social, environmental, policy, and culture. This study explains that participation in corporate wellness programs endorses a healthier lifestyle which leads to healthier employees who can contribute to their organization by being more productive.

Approach: This study investigated participation in corporate wellness programs of employees of XYZ Company in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A questionnaire based on the relevant literature was designed to collect the relevant data. A web-based questionnaire was adopted and sent to the respondents. The population of this study consisted of 900 employees. Due to the small size of the population, a decision was taken to survey all the population. The researcher was able to obtain 307 completed questionnaires out of the 900 which represented a 34% response rate. The respondents represented all the company levels. The collected data were checked for any missing data or miss-filling, then, the data entered to the SPSS version 23.0 software for further analysis.

Results: The study yielded a response rate of 34% with 60.3% male respondents and 38.1% female respondents. The average age range was 31-44 with 44.6% and 59% of themreported they would like to use physical activity the most especially in the corporate fitness center. Further, 41.3% of the respondents preferred the program to be personalized exercise or diet counseling, and 44% preferred the option of one to one which could be due to cultural factors. This was found the most significant factor with p-value (alpha) .001 at .01%level.

Recommendation: The researcher recommends that similar companies should use a comprehensive wellness program that includes physical activities, nutrition, recovery, and psychology and not one which focuses only on one aspect of wellness issues. Further, the company should focus on individual factors (motivations) and culture factors (beliefs) the most to increase employee’s participation in a corporate wellness program.

Originality value: This research applied a novel model in a novel context that increases the employees’ awareness and productivity which directly influences Bahrain economic development and aligns with Bahrain Vision 2030.

Keywords: Wellness programs, Employees’ participation, Employee and Corporate Wellness benefits, Employee wellbeing, personal and social, environmental, policy, culture, health, obesity, Bahrain, GCC.