Find Out What Your Participants Want

Has it been a while since you surveyed your population to find out what they like, don't like, and what they want from your wellness program? Don't worry. It's easy to let this slide. But knowing what your participants really want can help you choose wellness interventions and program perks that will get results.

Program perks or benefits are things you can offer your participants that add value to your wellness program. These are not incentives like cash rewards, gift cards, or discounted insurance premiums, but perks that can make your wellness program more appealing to participants.

In a recent survey of about 1,700 participants, researchers found that the wellness benefits or program perks being offered didn't match up with what participants wanted. Keep in mind that employers should offer tools participants need, and not just what participants want (ie., health risk assessment). Take a look at the difference between wellness benefits wants compared to what was really being offered based on this survey:

Top 4 Wellness Benefits Participants Want

• 25%– Fitness center discounts
• 22% – On-site preventive screenings
• 21%– Access to a health coach or nutritionist
• 19%– On-site fitness center

Top 4 Wellness Benefits Employers Offer

• 19%– Online wellness information
• 18%– Educational tools or resources
• 17%– Fitness center discounts
• 17%– Printed wellness reports and information

If your wellness program isn't performing as well as you would like, maybe you're not giving your participants what they want. So ask. Here are some ways to find out what your participants want from your wellness program:

• Invite participants to submit suggestions, ideas, and requests by mail or e-.
• Create an online survey (Using a tool like www.surveymonkey.com) and distribute via e-mail to get feedback from your participants.
• Use the Wellsource Organizational Health Culture Survey to find out what your participants like, don't like, and want from your wellness program.

Once you gather this data, compare the wellness wants of your participants with what you currently offer. Add these to programs you know your participants need, but may not ask for. You can measure the success of your wellness program by participation rates alone. But it's always a good idea to get feedback from your participants periodically as a way to improve your wellness program.

Source: Society for Human Resource Management. 2012.