Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie announced at the Wellness Council of Iowa’s annual conference in September that he wants Des Moines to become a “Well City.”

Kerry Juhl, the executive director of the Wellness Council of Iowa, says eight cities across the country have already earned the Wellness Councils of America’s Well City USA designation, including Omaha, Lincoln and Kearney, Neb. In order to earn the title, 20 percent of a city’s working population must be employed by a company that has completed an internal evaluation of its wellness programs to become a Well Workplace. Juhl said Des Moines is now about halfway to meeting that goal, with about 10 percent of the working population employed by Well Workplaces.

“We really think that if we get the right players on board as soon as possible, becoming a Well City is realistic goal by 2007,” Juhl said. “There are a lot of organizations already doing great things with wellness, but they just haven’t applied for this Well Workplace award.”

The Well Workplace program is a process designed to create an organizational culture that encourages and supports employee health. The Wellness Council of Iowa is the local administrator of the program. Companies that apply to be a Well Workplace undergo evaluation in seven areas: management support, data collection, establishing goals and objectives, evaluating and developing supportive policies, requesting employee feedback, corporate involvement in the community and appropriate programs for increasing awareness, educating and changing behavior.

Juhl said participating in the Well Workplace process has helped many companies identify holes in their wellness initiatives. The Wellness Council of Iowa prefers a company or organization have a wellness program in place for at least 12 months before applying to become a Well Workplace.

The city of Des Moines is taking steps to join 14 other employers in Greater Des Moines as a Well Workplace. A volunteer wellness committee composed of city workers is putting more emphasis on the organization’s internal wellness programs, according to Tansy Hayward, a management analyst in the city manager’s office.

“The city is moving in the right direction, and we hope that Mayor Cownie’s interest in wellness helps spur other companies to get involved, too,” Juhl said. “Cities that do have the designation use it as a recruitment tool, because not only do one or two employers offer great wellness program, but the whole city is supportive of wellness.”