Fifteen hours per week is where a corporate wellness program stops being a side project and starts running like an actual operation. A 15 hours corporate wellness VA has enough bandwidth to manage your recurring systems and take on one or two project-based tasks each month - things like lunch-and-learn events or quarterly wellness challenges that require planning, promotion, and follow-through. Here is a clear picture of what fits, what still does not, and the signals that mean it is time to add more hours.
What Gets Done
At 15 hours, your VA covers everything in a 10-hour scope plus layers on coordination work that requires more sustained attention:
- Program scheduling and facilitator management - Beyond basic calendar maintenance, your VA now has time to source backup facilitators, handle rescheduling when conflicts arise, and manage recurring session feedback.
- HR contact management and onboarding support - Updating enrollment records, sending welcome packets to new participants, and maintaining segmented contact lists by department or location.
- Employee engagement tracking - Logging participation, flagging drop-off trends, and producing visual dashboards or charts rather than raw numbers.
- Lunch-and-learn coordination - Booking speakers, arranging room reservations or virtual meeting links, promoting the event through internal channels, managing RSVPs, and handling follow-up surveys. One to two events per month fits comfortably.
- Vendor coordination - Managing multiple vendor relationships, comparing proposals, tracking contract renewal dates, and handling invoice reconciliation.
- Weekly and biweekly reporting - More detailed than what 10 hours allows. Your VA can now break down participation by department, track trends over time, and format reports for different stakeholders.
- Basic wellness challenge support - Setting up a quarterly step challenge or hydration challenge, including leaderboard tracking and participant communications, as long as it is not running simultaneously with a lunch-and-learn push.
Sample Weekly Schedule
| Day | Hours | Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 3.0 | Review week's wellness sessions, confirm facilitators, send reminders, handle rescheduling |
| Tuesday | 3.0 | HR contact updates, new participant onboarding, engagement data collection |
| Wednesday | 3.0 | Lunch-and-learn planning (speaker outreach, promotion drafts, RSVP tracking) |
| Thursday | 3.0 | Compile engagement dashboard, draft stakeholder report, vendor follow-ups |
| Friday | 3.0 | Invoice reconciliation, challenge leaderboard update, next-week prep |
The extra five hours over a 10-hour plan mean your VA can spend meaningful time on each area rather than rushing through a checklist. Wednesdays become a dedicated coordination day, which is where the real operational lift happens.
What Gets Cut
Fifteen hours handles a lot, but these areas still need more bandwidth:
- Multi-location coordination - Managing wellness programs across three or more offices involves separate vendor relationships, different time zones, and location-specific participation tracking. This alone can consume 10 hours per week.
- Biometric screening logistics - Full screening coordination - scheduling across shifts, managing consent forms, coordinating with healthcare vendors, and compiling results - is a seasonal project that needs dedicated sprint hours.
- Incentive program administration - Running a points-based rewards system with eligibility verification, reward fulfillment, and employee support tickets requires consistent daily attention that competes with your existing tasks.
- ROI metrics and executive reporting - Building detailed cost-benefit analyses, correlating wellness participation with healthcare claims data, and producing board-level presentations goes beyond weekly reporting.
- Budget tracking and forecasting - Maintaining a live budget with variance analysis, purchase order tracking, and forecasting for the next quarter is feasible only if you drop one of the project-based tasks.
When to Upgrade
Move to 20 or 30 hours per week when:
- You are managing wellness programs across two or more physical locations.
- Leadership wants monthly executive reports with ROI data, not just participation summaries.
- You are running wellness challenges and lunch-and-learns in the same month regularly.
- An incentive or rewards program is launching and needs ongoing daily management.
- Biometric screening season is approaching and you need someone to own the logistics end to end.
The shift from 15 to 20 hours opens the door to running two parallel projects without sacrificing the recurring maintenance work.
How does 15 hours compare to hiring a part-time coordinator?
A part-time in-house coordinator at 15 hours per week costs significantly more when you factor in benefits, office space, and management overhead. A VA delivers comparable output on recurring and coordination tasks at a lower total cost. Where an in-house hire wins is in face-to-face facilitation - running the actual wellness sessions. Most programs split the work: VA handles the back office, coordinator handles the room. The 10-hour scope is a leaner starting point.
Can my VA run a lunch-and-learn from start to finish?
Yes, for virtual events and for in-person events where you have an on-site contact for day-of logistics. Your VA handles speaker outreach, calendar invites, promotional emails, RSVP management, and post-event surveys. Someone on-site handles room setup and AV. For fully virtual lunch-and-learns, your VA can manage everything including the meeting link and recording distribution.
What if I need more hours during open enrollment season?
Most VA arrangements are flexible. You can temporarily increase to the 20-hour scope during peak periods like open enrollment, annual biometric screenings, or a major wellness challenge launch, then scale back afterward.
How do I measure whether 15 hours is working?
Track three metrics: your own reclaimed hours per week, program participation rates, and stakeholder satisfaction with reporting quality and timeliness. If all three improve within the first month, the scope is right. If participation tracking is falling behind or reports are late, you are likely under-resourced.
What background should I look for in a corporate wellness VA?
Prioritize candidates with experience in event coordination, HR software (BambooHR, Workday, or similar), and basic data visualization. Wellness industry knowledge helps but is less critical than organizational skills and reliability. WHO reports 1 in 4 adults is insufficiently physically active.