4 Common Reasons Employee Wellness Incentive Programs Fail
How to improve employee participation in wellbeing programs
Posted on 04-09-2019, Read Time: Min
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Improving employee participation in wellbeing programs requires several components: understanding individual health and wellbeing goals, delivering relevant programing to support these goals, and motivating employees to take action. A popular motivation strategy among today’s employers is incorporating incentives into wellbeing programs.
More than 85% of employers offered incentives in 2018 to motivate consumers to be healthier, compared to 74% in 2017, according to the ninth annual Health and Well-Being Survey from Fidelity Investments® and the National Business Group on Health®. Organizations are also increasing incentive budgets to fuel more wellbeing program engagement, drive brand loyalty, and keep positive behaviors in motion.
The average employee incentive increased by 50 percent since 2013 to $784 in 2018. This is a win-win for both employers and employees, if and only if, the incentives programs are executed successfully. Here are four reasons why incentive programs may not be delivering the desired results:
More than 85% of employers offered incentives in 2018 to motivate consumers to be healthier, compared to 74% in 2017, according to the ninth annual Health and Well-Being Survey from Fidelity Investments® and the National Business Group on Health®. Organizations are also increasing incentive budgets to fuel more wellbeing program engagement, drive brand loyalty, and keep positive behaviors in motion.
The average employee incentive increased by 50 percent since 2013 to $784 in 2018. This is a win-win for both employers and employees, if and only if, the incentives programs are executed successfully. Here are four reasons why incentive programs may not be delivering the desired results:
- There is no Executive Support. Without (visible) leadership approval, participating in an incentivized health and wellbeing program won’t become part of your culture and employees won’t be as motivated to participate. Feature a senior level executive in your outreach campaigns and experience a significant increase in engagement rates. To be truly successful, a culture of wellbeing is essential at all levels of leadership. Welltok’s Wellbeing Wake-Up Report revealed 58% full-time working Americans feel that their direct manager supports their efforts to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This type of support is encouraging and is demonstrated by approving time off for a doctor’s appointment or supporting participation in yoga over lunch.
- Employees Don’t Know About the Rewards. It’s great that most large employers are now offering total wellbeing programs, which include dozens of resources to support all aspects of health – physical, emotional, financial and spiritual. However, it can be overwhelming to manage and for employees to locate relevant resources and incentives. The rise of employee wellbeing platforms provides a single destination for employees to learn about personalized wellbeing programs, complete actions, and earn and track rewards.
- Incentives are Strictly Cash. While one may assume that cash is king, it is not. Cash rewards and insurance premium reductions are commonly used to motivate employers to complete health-related activities. But it’s not all about the money. Employees are interested in many types of incentives, according to the Wellbeing Wake-Up Report. Extra vacation time (74%), flexible work schedule (62%), and wellness benefits (55%) are the most popular non-traditional choices. Less attractive incentives were volunteer time, commuter benefits, and lunch with company leadership.
- Incentives and Target Activities are Misaligned. An effective rewards program must align the right type of incentive with the targeted behavior. Are you offering $5 or $50 to complete a 10-minute survey? Or a volunteer day for participating in a stress management program? Leverage advanced data and partner expertise to make sure you’re offering an appropriate incentive for the action requested. For example, by offering a $25 incentive to employees for completing a health risk assessment, a state employer experienced a 650% increase in participation over the previous year.
Successful wellbeing programs will include a sophisticated incentive design strategy that creates the right mix of incentives and rewards (monetary or non-monetary) to drive the highest program participation at the lowest cost. What types of non-traditional incentives does your organization offer?
Author Bio
| Heidi Werth is the Director of Solution Design at Welltok. Heidi is an instinctive leader who strategically organizes chaos into structure to create meaningful organizational impact. She has built her career in the healthcare industry, leading strategic initiatives for the Health Transformation Alliance, Hartford HealthCare and Aetna. Visit www.welltok.com Connect Heidi Werth Follow @Welltok |
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