Three Ways to Improve Your Wellness Program

An effective wellness program can improve the health of your employees, impact insurance costs, lower health claims and absenteeism, and increase productivity. Here are three ways to get the most out of your wellness program:

1. Develop an Operating Plan

An operating plan provides the foundation for your wellness program. It gives you a written roadmap to help make decisions about your wellness program. If you already have an operating plan, review it again (or start planning with the Worksite Wellness Toolkit) to make sure your wellness program matches the guidelines established by your wellness committee. It should include:

• Vision and mission statements
• Specific goals and objectives
• Implementation timelines
• Roles and responsibilities of everyone involved
• Itemized wellness budget
• Marketing strategies to promote the program
• Program evaluation metrics

2. Offer Incentives

Incentives can be powerful motivators for individuals to participate in a wellness program. Small-item incentives include water bottles, movie tickets, and T-shirts. Larger incentives include gift cards, cash, employer health plan contributions, and medical plan coverage enhancement.

Current research shows that if you offer incentives similar to these, your organization can expect the following average participation rates:

• T-Shirts and other small items = 10-20% participation
• Merchandise and gift cards = 40% participation
• Cash incentives = 50% participation
• Tied to health insurance premium benefits = 80% participation

Incentives are an important part of encouraging participation and rewarding individuals for their efforts. Follow these guidelines in selecting incentives for your wellness program:

Make the incentive meaningful. A meaningful incentive will create a powerful connection between you, your wellness program, and your employees.

Make the incentive memorable. A memorable incentive will create a lasting impression that reinforces behavior changes.

Make the incentive measurable. A measurable incentive will achieve results for your corporate objectives.

3. Evaluate Outcomes

Evaluating your wellness program allows for a better understanding of what's working and what needs your attention. Here are the common indicators you should evaluate regularly to measure the effectiveness of your wellness program:

• Participation numbers in specific wellness programs.
• Health changes such as stopping smoking, increasing levels of physical activity, eating more fruits and vegetables, etc.
• Changes in the number of risk factors within your organization.
• Changes in biometric numbers.
• Productivity indicators such as absenteeism, turnover, and employee morale.
• Return on investment, which will require wellness program data and information from human resources to calculate.

You can also evaluate your wellness program by using employee satisfaction surveys throughout the year (semi-annually or yearly) and/or program-specific evaluation surveys.