With it being hard enough to find the same view of what the weather is like at any given time, unanimous agreement in everyday life is rare. Business owners are fully aware of this, as entrepreneurship is all about compromise.
That being said, there is one thing that companies who make employee benefits available all seem to be united regarding: they're worthwhile. In a recent survey conducted by human resources association, WorldatWork, 96 percent of organizations supported employee wellness initiatives in their ability to promote healthy living, which when adhered to can improve work productivity and decrease absenteeism.
The only problem is that these programs aren't all surefire winners. In fact, even though 85 percent of U.S. employers with more than 1,000 employees offer a wellness program, just 1 in 4 workers participate in them, according to polling data conducted by Gallup and the Rand Corporation.
When implemented effectively, however, the results that stem from wellness benefits pay off in a big way. What business owners have to figure out is how to make these programs work for everyone.
Know your workforce
It starts with having an in-depth knowledge of a workforce and where its weaknesses lie, according to Kayla Wilcox O'Neal, national practice consultant for a health risk solutions firm.
"It's really important to know where your risks lie within your population so you can design a wellness program that targets the people that you need to target," said O'Neal, according to BenefitsPro. "Your program shouldn't be one-size-fits all – it's best to consider what you want to incent and how accountable you want people to be for their health."
She added that because everyone within a company has a different history in terms of getting regular exercise, setting a goal for everyone to participate in a 5K road race isn't the best way of going about things. Business owners first have to take a census of sorts in order to determine what commonalities workers have – high blood pressure or obesity, for example – and then design a program that lowers participants' risk.
Then there's the issue of getting everyone to participate. Exercise and wellness doesn't come naturally to everyone, meaning that some are fine with how things are, thus aren't inclined to take part in these programs if there's nothing to fix. This is why incentives are critical to include.
"Incentives are an absolutely necessary tool, and they absolutely have to be combined with other engagement tools," Michael Dermer, chief incentive officer at Welltok, told BenefitsPro. "Communications, social, gaming, team challenges – all the different engagement tools work hand-in-hand with incentives."
Incentives are a means, not the end
He added that incentives are not an end in and of themselves, but rather the means through which employees are enticed to make lifestyle changes. Initially workers may only be in it for the material gain that they get out of it. But over time, the hope is that they will have an epiphany – a moment of clarity that will spur them to accomplish wellness objectives for the sake of their personal and professional welfare.
Business owners can help out along the way by making it easier for staff members to reach their aims.
"In an office environment, if you want people to move during the day and don't want to be sitting all the time, then you should create an environment where people could sit or stand to do their work, and sit-to-stand workplaces reinforce that," said Stephanie Pronk, Aon Hewitt senior vice president, in an interview with BenefitsPro.
Office design can reap rewards for businesses as well. In a worldwide study of 7,600 office workers from more than a dozen countries, 33 percent said how their workplace was set up and situated would "unequivocally influence" their work output and whether they wanted to be employed by a specific company, according to Interface, a modular flooring firm.
