The proliferation of ideas on how best to attack employee “sickness” is only rivaled by the rapidly growing number of “wellness” programs. But in a world where 40 percent of employees spend 15 minutes a year thinking about their benefits decisions, what is the secret to communicating and engaging employees in a wellness program that works?
We are in that season again. The time of the year when employers (and their brokers) evaluate changes to their benefit programs. Often, these contemplated changes involve tweaks to existing programs or the rollout of completely new initiatives. A continued hot topic for 2016 is “wellness.”
While there is great variety to the approaches taken by various employers, our research suggests that nearly all employers are confronting the fact that their investments in wellness are returning mixed results. When asked why, one of the top answers is that these programs are failing to adequately engage the target populations in significant numbers.
|Raise awareness
According to recent studies by Rand and Gallup, while nearly 85 percent of employers offer a wellness program, only 60 percent of their employees are aware of the program, and only 40 percent of those actually participate in the program.
For employers looking to expand a wellness program’s impact, they must work on both increased awareness and increased participation. Our work with employers has reinforced our predisposition that employee awareness of particular benefit programs is best achieved through focused communication tied to the open enrollment transaction.
With more and more employers moving to passive enrollment and employee self-service technology platforms, the opportunity for focused communication around open enrollment is often missed. We are seeing more employers return to “enhanced” personal benefit communications, often including one-on-one counseling sessions, with the specific objectives of improving employee engagement and improving benefits literacy.
The desire to improve wellness program engagement is a primary driver of this trend. These one-on-one sessions can be customized to meet the specific needs of various target populations and further offered (or made mandatory) for specific populations who have yet to engage in the wellness program.
|Incent via technology
The role of the benefit technology platform in wellness engagement is also very important. Our experience suggests that incentives (either carrots or sticks) must be fully integrated into the enrollment experience to be truly effective. Variable rates structures and the ability to apply wellness credits increases both awareness and participation.
If these cannot be managed within the technology platform, their effectiveness is diminished. While many employees are capable of the critical thinking and complex math required to compute how their participation in the wellness program can positively impact the overall value of their benefits package, few will take the time or apply the mental energy to do so. Consequently, the benefits delivery platform must do this work for them for a program to be truly effective.
While wellness communication initiatives have always included posters and payroll stuffers, our research has concluded that integrated messaging (videos, storyboards, and data-driven avatars) has proved to be much more effective than blanket communications disassociated from the enrollment workflow.
This is especially true when organizations are trying to move the needle from low 20 percent participation rates to a greater than 50 percent participation. Benefits delivery platforms must move beyond supporting basic enrollment transactions in a linear workflow augmented by a printed (or online) enrollment guide.
These platforms must shift towards a dynamic decision support experience using all of the sophisticated tools often typical of the best in class retail experiences. Retailers worried about shopping cart abandonment rates know that all of their communications must be integrated into the flow of the transaction.
They balance focused, short communications, contextually presented with the desire to provide the most efficient shopping and checkout experience. Employers (and their brokers) need to have the same sophistication in their thinking (and technology platforms) if they are going to significantly increase wellness engagement.
|Manage messaging
An equally important ingredient to increased engagement is the message itself. Leading employers are beginning to realize that their communication around wellness needs to be both well thought out and intentionally delivered. Does the wellness message complement the overall corporate message regarding employee culture? Is the message compelling for the target audience? Is the message objectionable to the non-target audience?
Finally, data suggests that participation rates are highly correlated to first line manager involvement and support for the program. Wellness delivery support should specifically target people managers and ensure they have the necessary information to support (and explain) the wellness program. Again, integration of these messages into a manager’s open enrollment experience is a proven best practice.
From program design through delivery and employee assistance, wellness programs fight for mind space with other initiatives to reduce healthcare expenses. Brokers and employers must thoughtfully design a wellness program most likely to result in high engagement — and subsequent impact. And, like other elements of the overall benefits strategy, an effective wellness program requires an equal investment in the proper delivery of the wellness program. For many employers, this will require them to challenge their traditional thinking about benefits delivery (and benefits delivery platforms) to achieve their desired wellness engagement results.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
