What Does The Future Of Workplace Wellness Hold?

Workplace wellness schemes have become immensely popular over recent years, including everything from work-sponsored biometric screenings to programmes to help you quit smoking and health coaching. There are even exercise classes involved but things are changing, despite workplace wellness becoming increasingly popular additions to employer portfolios. Because the market has evolved to not just include a phone call and a meeting with a coach, schemes are now moving into the technology realm. When the industry started, there was a fear in asking employees to disclose information about their health, and as that portion of the programme has moved on, things have changed. The uneasiness on the part of the employers has been subsumed by the reality that offering health coverage now costs so much more. Workplace wellness is now an industry worth billions of pounds and recent surveys suggest that around half of all companies with at least 50 workers have some sort of scheme in place. But at the backdrop to this is the crisis state of the healthcare market, with many chronic conditions being lifestyle diseases. The concept behind the workplace wellness programme is to help people to navigate the complex nature of lifestyle and health, by giving them the support they need to make healthier changes and the tools they need to improve their lives. In the process, they may help their employer avoid costly health claims down the road, but is this really how companies save money? Just how valuable is it to employers to have a workplace wellness scheme in place?

 

There’s an underlying concept of building a stock exchange for your health, and as such you treat your health as a stock which can go up or down depending on how you treat it. You need to go to the screenings and track your health so, for example, if your blood pressure goes down, your stock goes up. Technology offers an instant form of feedback, so if you light up on your lunch break, it will give you the hard facts – it cost you £5, you lost 146 days from your life expectancy, and all because of one cigarette. These are facts which are harder to shrug off. LifeVest is a start-up from Philadelphia which has now added a number of companies to its roster. What makes LifeVest different is the association of money to your health. Having an investment in your health is bound to affect your behaviour, and direct financial incentives for workplace wellness schemes are still quite rare, but studies show that money is a great motivator. It’s early days, but companies are seeing a rise in engagement numbers which is rooted in economics. Using competition and financial motivators helps to add to the accountability tools – you’ve got competition with your friends, your family are holding you accountable and you’ve got your financial incentives. In fact, smokers have as much as a 50 per cent higher premium than non-smokers. But people are ok penalising smokers as a way of encouraging them to quit their addiction. Looking at obesity though, this is a more complex problem and finding the right balance between incentivising weight control and simply imposing a tax on obesity is very difficult. Workplace wellness schemes have a long way to go before they find the right balance between helping both the employer and the employee, but this new way of working, by offering financial incentives, could well be the answer to this problem.

Categories: Companies, financial, financial incentives, health, incentives, Wellness, wellness schemes, workplace, Workplace Wellness

Four Steps for Implementing a Corporate Culture of Wellness

Many businesses are implementing corporate wellness programmes, but there are those for whom such plans are a privilege, or optional extra. According to Joshua Love, the president of national corporate wellness company Kinema Fitness, ‘When I stop and think about employee wellness, I have to step away from my day to day responsibilities and take a look from the employer perspective. I think it’s a no-brainer to install a wellness programme at every company, no matter the size, demographic, location or what service or product the company provides. My belief is that no company can be successful without paying attention to the wellbeing of their people — and people can’t be successful without feeling good every day.’

 

Love continues, ‘We live in a fast-paced, busy world, full of constant distractions. We’re constantly dialed in with technology and always on the move. Which is why it’s so refreshing to walk into a company where you feel the environment is different, one where people seem motivated, excited, inspired and really love what they do. My experience with corporate wellness leads me back to Google in Mountain View, CA (and how Google maintains its status as one of the top 100 best companies to work for year after year). Google doesn’t just create jobs, they create a culture, one in which people are valued and appreciated every day. Google’s locations have full fitness facilities, daily classes and healthy food available throughout the day; as a result, employees feel cared for and valued.’

 

Do you have to be as lucrative or as large as Google to create a culture of wellness? Of course not; every company has the ability to implement some kind of wellness programme. But how do you do it? Love has a four-step process to help you install a wellness programme that‘s efficient, smart, scalable and goal-oriented:

 

1. Determine the Needs of Employer AND Employee: ‘First, we ask a simple question,’ says Love. ‘What do employees need, and how do those needs fit with the goals of the employer? It’s impossible to answer these questions without assessing both sides. It is essential to understand the mindsets, challenges, and your audience first before laying out a framework for its path. This includes surveying not only the employees, but also the employer. A simple health risk assessment (which your insurance carrier may offer) followed by biometric screens is a good way to assess problem areas.’

 

2. Analyze the Data and Create a Plan: Love details, ‘Based on our survey data, we try to determine what elements will work for the existing culture. Is it fitness classes that will motivate the employees, wellness workshops, individual health assessments, or some combination of the above? We always recommend combining wellness education with physical activity — otherwise, many employees will not take advantage of classes and programmes they need to see real benefits.’

 

3. Create a Communication Plan: ‘A culture of wellness doesn’t happen without reinforcement,’ Love asserts. ‘Employers must create a communication plan that lays out the programme’s framework and different methods (and times) to communicate the information to employees. This keeps wellness at the forefront.’

 

4. Put an Incentive Plan in Place: Love comments, ‘We have found, time and again, that rewarding employees for getting healthy and achieving results encourages the type of change needed to get a programme off the ground and encourage a real shift in employee culture. However, because the required behaviour changes are new, challenging, and difficult to sustain, programmes must include incentives and rewards throughout the year in order to drive long-term engagement.’

Categories: Communication, company, corporate wellness, culture, employees, incentives, nbsp, Wellness, Wellness Programme

Wellness Programmes: Should You Offer Employees Incentives?

It used to be that implementing an employee wellness programme meant simply putting a few posters up in the office encouraging people to take care of their wellbeing. Some companies may have stretched as far as having a gym in the office, but that was really about it. Nowadays, however, businesses are starting to plough real money into programmes, using cash incentives – or even penalties – to get workers in better shape.

 

In fact, according to a recent survey from Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health, nearly 90% of employers offer wellness incentives, or financial rewards or prizes to employees who work toward getting healthier. In 2009, this number was at a mere 57% in comparison, and the perks were lower too. Four years ago, the average US employee might expect an incentive of $260, but now they can rake in an average of $521. Fidelity benefits consultant Adam Stavisky comments, ‘They feel that if they pay more they’ll get a better result.’ But is this really the case? Stephanie Pronk, health and wellness consultant with Aon AON, argues, ‘Incentives themselves are not the silver bullet. It’s really important to change up the incentive design and keep people on their toes.’ With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the popular incentive programmes in use today.

 

1. Educational/Awareness Incentives: Jen Wieczner, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch, explains, ‘Companies offer rewards for completing activities that include an assessment of their personal health and risk factors. These can range from filling out a questionnaire about family medical history, diet and fitness routine, to taking a biometric screening for cholesterol, blood pressure and other factors.’ The Lockton Benefit Group state that your incentives need to be worth at least £60 to get about 75% of employees to participate, otherwise you’re looking at a participation rate of 30-50%. The pros here are that you introduce your workers to healthy behaviour and personal risk factors, as well as being able to tailor future endeavours to employee needs. However, your workers about their health risks won’t necessarily lead them to take action.

 

2. Incentives Based on Actions: In this wellness programme, your employees take action to improve their health to earn awards or to avoid penalties. Houston city employees, for example, have to complete three tasks in order to avoid a $25 monthly payroll surcharge. These include filling out a health-risk assessment, taking a biometric screening, talking to a health coach, signing up for a programme like Weight Watchers or getting a screening such as a mammogram. As a result, 90% of employees have completed three of the tasks or more, so you can see how motivational this model is. However, the con of this model is that the incentives don’t encourage long term healthy behaviour, only enough to complete the required programmes.

 

3. Everything-But-the-Kitchen-Sink Incentives: You offer your employees incentives for an array of tasks, with bigger and complex tasks corresponding to bigger rewards. The plus point of this approach is that you give your workers to freedom to choose their own health activities, which they enjoy. JetBlue Airways Corp is one such company who goes in for DIY incentives, offering anything from $25 for a teeth cleaning, to $400 for completing an Ironman triathlon. Pronk notes that a wellness programme that lays out a tempting trail to follow will have more success keeping people involved. Still, the variety of options can be overwhelming for your employees, and you might be wasting your money on activities that aren’t effectively addressing your workers’ biggest health problems.

Categories: biometric screening, corporate wellness programmes, employees, employees incentives, health, healthy behaviour, incentives, Pros and Cons, risk factors, Wellness, Wellness Programme

Lose Weight With This Unusual Method

Losing weight is a huge challenge, which many people struggle to achieve every year. Thanks to a new health care law, Americans now have an even stronger reason to try to stick to the diet, besides their own wellness: financial incentive. Under the new law, employers are entitled to ask employees who are overweight and do not do any exercise to pay an increased rate to cover the cost of their health insurance premiums.

On the back of this, some employers are designing weight-loss schemes that use money as an incentive to help their employees increase their wellbeing and lose weight. The thinking is that money and financial loss or gain may be an even better incentive than any willpower-based ones.

Nurses at a leading health centre in Bowie, Md, have confirmed that they see evidence of the obesity epidemic that has taken hold of America on a daily basis. They claim that most patients are either overweight or obese, and require extra nurses to help move them, as well as specially modified stretchers or larger ambulances. The nurses themselves are not unsympathetic to the problem, as many of them struggle with their own weight-related battles.

Long shifts and unsociable working hours can lead to temptations such as unhealthy snacking. In order to combat this, the nurses have entered a national weight-loss competition, where the winning team wins $10,000. This financial incentive has helped them to feel motivated, and the weight loss is recorded through mobile phones, social networking and so on.

Regardless of the potential positive effects of financial rewards on weight loss, there is still a huge failure rate, with three quarters of those who are attempting a diet still failing, even although they stand to reach some kind of financial gain by persevering.

Their path isn’t an easy one. The vast majority of weight loss attempts fail. Despite this, many employers are still using financial incentives to reward employees who lose weight. Due to the lower cost of health insurance, they still end up better off financially.

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Lose Weight With This Unusual Method

Categories: incentives, money, Weight Loss