Corporate Wellness Incentive Plans

The program design options hinge upon the goals and objectives and desired outcomes of your program.  If your intention is to help workers make a 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 necessary 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 similar results, and therefore should not be confused.  By way of example, scheduling activities such as an employee health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having brochures available do not usually result in behavior change, but may expand awareness on a topic.  If the objective is behavior change then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Employer Support.  The outline below outlines the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs:  At this level a company makes health information available and accessible to staff members.  This type of program can include brochures on a variety of issues, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.   Also, most wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with vendors providing information and providing health screenings to staff members.  

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

Education Programs:  Educational programs frequently support more information on a topic and usually 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 company a little more than awareness programs; however, they remain inexpensive and do not require a whole lot of time for planning or attending a session.  Again, building awareness and offering information may not lead to the desired behavior modification unless ongoing support or rewards and incentives are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs:  These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or classes to offer wellness and health education, address barriers and offer opportunities to practice the desired skills.  Behavior change programs therefore require more employer resources, cost more, and also require more employee responsibility, 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 physical activity program.

Environmental and Corporation Support:  Environmental reinforcement is frequently considered the highest and most significant 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 tobacco-free workplace
• Designating a walking path,
• Establishing worksite fitness centers,
• Ensuring healthy snack machines selections,
• Offering healthy meal choices in the cafeteria, and/or
• Creating flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy vending 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 integrated the approach, the more successful the outcome will be.  For example, a business can have tobacco cessation information available; can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit; can start an worksite tobacco cessation program, supply self quit smoking kits, or support staff members to attend a neighborhood program; and/or on an environmental support level can establish a tobacco-free workplace and grounds, offer decreased medical insurance for non-smokers, or support pharmacological quit smoking aids for free.

Company Wellness Program: Components for Success

There are several critical parts that must be considered to ensure the success of your Employee Health Promotion Program or Employee Health Promotion Program.  These include:  

• Upper Management Reinforcement & Employee Involvement
• Active Worksite Health Promotion Program Committee
• Program is Based on Employee Needs & Interests
• Goals and Objectives are Determined
• Detailed Action Plan Based upon Resources & Budget
• Program Implementation & Internal Marketing
• Assessment of Outcomes and Program