With the average ROI of corporate wellness programs being three times that of the program cost, the desire to get employees involved in these programs comes as no surprise. To encourage participation, many companies offer incentives to motivate employee participation—but if employees need an incentive to participate, how engaged are they in the program?
HealthMine found that only a third of employees actually participate in their company’s wellness program and just 44 percent of those participants say they plan to continue with the program for at least a year, which suggests that participation incentives may not be enough to get employees involved.
To push past participation metrics, companies should focus on creating corporate wellness programs that not only motivate employee participation but help employees make a real lifestyle change. And to do so, we recommend incorporating fitness trackers, goal setting, and a healthy dose of competition to get employees motivated about wellness initiatives.
Incorporate Fitness Trackers
Fitness trackers can play a key role in keeping employees engaged and focused on bettering their health. These devices help employees focus in on their personal goals, while providing the support of a larger community. But while employees may enjoy tracking the progress of their team, department, or company overall, real progress comes from measuring their fitness and health goals at an individual level.
Not only do these devices let employees track their activity and progress, they greatly increase the accuracy of the data collected. With fitness trackers, health and wellness program administrators can automatically collect program information—such as overall activity level—and don’t have to rely on employees self-reporting their activity.
According to HealthMine data, only half of the companies surveyed are using fitness tracking devices in their wellness programs today, but that’s expected to change. ABI Research predicts that 13 million wearable devices will be integrated into corporate wellness plans within the next five years.
To successfully implement fitness trackers into a corporate wellness program, organizations need to avoid trying to find a “one size fits all” device and instead look for platforms that integrate data from a range of different fitness trackers, such as Matchup. This option gives employees the ability to choose which device works best for them on an individual level, while still creating a fitness community across the company.
Set Short- and Long-Term Goals
To truly evaluate a corporate wellness program, companies need to look at metrics showing employee health and fitness improvements over time, rather than focusing on participation alone. Are employees walking more now than they were six months ago? Sleeping and/or eating better? Employees are more likely to improve their overall health with a goal-oriented wellness program, and both short- and long-term health and fitness goals play a role. Short-term goals let employees set quickly achievable goals that inspire initial motivation in the program, while long-term goals inspire commitment to true lifestyle changes.
To create a goal-oriented wellness program, companies first should evaluate their employees’ needs to make realistic goals that suit the company culture. Consider documenting and displaying employee goals to encourage more obtainable and specific goal setting, but also to remind employees of what they are hoping to achieve. And with any goal-oriented program, a reward system of reaching each goal will increase the likelihood that each one is met.
Create Friendly Competition Between Co-Workers
Nothing fuels people more than a dose of friendly competition, especially in the workplace. Many companies put competitions in place for work-oriented goals, such as rewarding the employee with the highest sales for the quarter, so why not also put competition into wellness programs, as well? Individual leader boards and interoffice team challenges make fitness fun and push employees to meet their personal goals, as well as the company’s overall health goals. As an added bonus to improving employee health, incorporating friendly competition in the workplace helps to develop a unified and exciting company culture.
To implement healthy competition in the workplace, companies need to begin by evaluating what degree of competition will be welcome and obtainable by the whole office. Making challenges too difficult—or too simple—can greatly decrease involvement. Introducing a daily step leaderboard is the perfect jumping-off point to integrate competition into a wellness program, as the data also can be used to evaluate individual and overall employee health and to set goals for improvement.
Anthony Knierim is the co-founder and COO of Matchup, which builds solutions to improve health and wellness.
