Wellness Program Incentives

The program design options hinge upon the objectives and desired outcomes of your program.  If your goal is to help employees change behavior, lower risk factors, or save healthcare money then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be crucial to support that design.  

Wellness program design options vary, depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable in terms of obtaining the same results, and therefore ought not be confused.  By way of example, scheduling activities such as an employee wellbeing and health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having brochures available do not usually result in behavior change, but may increase awareness on a topic.  If the goal is behavior change then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Company Support.  The outline below describes the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a company makes health information available and accessible to employees.  This type of program frequently includes pamphlets on a variety of subject matters, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most health & wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors offering information and offering health screenings to employees.  

Awareness programs are cheap and do not require extensive employee or corporation time commitments.  Nevertheless, these programs do not usually yield behavior modification.  Improving awareness isn’t usually enough to generate lifestyle changes for most Americans, unless used to excite employees to register for a program being provided at the corporation or community on the topic.  An example of this would be providing information on the deleterious effects of smoking and inviting employees who smoke to register for a smoking cessation class.

Education Programs:  Educational programs often support more information on a topic and have the potential to also provide time for Q & A, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  These cost the employer a modest amount more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require much time for planning or attending a session.  Again, building awareness and offering information may not lead to the desired behavior modification unless ongoing backing or incentives are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or seminars to offer wellbeing and health education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require additional business resources, cost more, and also require additional employee commitment, time and effort.  The results are frequently the desired positive lifestyle change, which if sustained may lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples include smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing fitness program.

Environmental and Employer Support:  Environmental reinforcement is often considered the highest and most valuable level to include when creating your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthy behaviors.  These types of design options include policy changes such as:

• Creating a smoke-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Establishing workplace fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy snack machines selections,
• Offering healthy food choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Creating flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy snack machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing fitness center or weight loss and weight management program memberships; or offering insurance incentives for healthy behaviors.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of each of these options.  The more comprehensive the approach, the more successful the outcome will be.  By way of example, a corporation can have smoking cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can implement an onsite tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support workers to go to a neighborhood program; and/or on an environmental support level can establish a smoke-free workplace and grounds, offer decreased medical insurance for non-smokers, or offer pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Company Wellness Program: Components for Success

There are many critical components that must be considered to see to the effectiveness of your Worksite Wellness Program or Worksite Wellness Program.  These include:  

• Senior Leadership Backing & Employee Involvement
• Active Worksite Wellness Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Assessment of Outcomes and Program