What HR Should Make Of Worksite Wellness Programs In 2019?

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The past 12 months have not been kind to worksite wellness. June 2018 saw the release of the revised NBER random control trial (RCT) study of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s worksite wellness program. Now in 2019, we have just seen the release of another RCT study of the worksite wellness program at BJ’s Wholesale Club. The results from both of these RCT studies showed that these worksite wellness programs made little or no difference at either the individual or organizational levels. Since most worksite wellness programs today reside inside HR, the HR community must certainly be wondering and questioning, if only to themselves, what they should make of worksite wellness programs today.

After all, the worksite wellness community has been touting to the HR community for years what worksite wellness can do for the health of employees and for reducing employer healthcare spending. The NBER and BJ’s studies both failed to demonstrate either. Unless anyone can prove serious methodological flaws with either study, the published results are what they are.

As a nationally certified worksite wellness program consultant, I would suggest that when it comes to worksite wellness programs, HR leaders should consider the following:

First, ask yourself how does our worksite wellness program offer for programming and interventions compared to the program offerings studied at the University of Illinois and at BJ’s Wholesale Club?

Second, I would encourage HR leaders to ask how their own worksite wellness program is being monitored, measured and evaluated. It is well established that you can better manage what you measure and that measurement and evaluation are two key components of any effort at continuous quality improvement. And I would certainly think that every HR leader wants to continually improve their worksite wellness program.

Third, I would encourage HR leaders to revisit the alignment between the worksite wellness program’s purpose and the worksite wellness program’s offerings. Scope and delivery creep can occur just as easily in worksite wellness as it does elsewhere within the organization. It is also important for HR leaders to be sure that what is being offered aligns with the program’s stated purpose AND is capable of impacting or influencing the organization’s desired short and long-term outcomes for the program.

Fourth, I would encourage HR leaders to examine how their organization’s structure, culture, workplace climates, policies, and practices are all contributing to or detracting from employee health, wellness and wellbeing. It is well established that context plays a significant role in health, wellness and wellbeing. This means that the workplace context cannot be ignored and neither can the role the organization itself plays in health, wellness and wellbeing. To focus all your attention, efforts and resources solely on the individual employee is doing but half the job that needs to be done.

Finally, I would encourage HR leaders to begin paying attention to the big shift beginning to take place within the field of worksite wellness. This shift is a shift away from today’s nearly singular worksite wellness program focus on employee health to a focus on the multi-dimensional concept of wellbeing. Health does not equal wellbeing. Health is but one dimension in every published wellbeing model I have ever seen.

If, as an HR leader, you are seeking to address the concepts of the employee experience and employee engagement in your organization, then you will need to address employee wellbeing at multiple levels. Today’s worksite wellness programs with their nearly singular focus on the physical or physiological health of employees are a long way from addressing employee wellbeing. Health alone does not equal wellbeing. It is not even close. To go from health to wellbeing will require big changes indeed.

After the worksite wellness news of the past 12 months, as an HR leader you should, at a minimum, be asking lots of questions of your worksite wellness program’s managers and leaders, as well as your worksite wellness program vendor if you have one. You can’t change what you don’t know or understand.

Based on my nearly 20 years in the field of worksite wellness, I remain convinced that worksite wellness can deliver value for an employer. We all just need to be sure that what we are asking worksite wellness programs to deliver, that they are, in fact, capable of delivering. Nothing is worse than having false expectations and then being upset when our expectations don’t materialize.

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