How To Mitigate The Negatives Of Corporate Wellness

This article was originally published on Healthmagazine

While over 70% of U.S. companies offer corporate wellness programs, and benefits range from healthy snacks, quiet rooms for napping and meditation to paid spin classes, primary medical care and high-tech gyms, these programs have detractors and failures. Although the number of companies offering wellness benefits increases every year, there are roadblocks to advancing a program and gaining employee acceptance.

Read on to learn more about the most common negatives of implementing a corporate wellness initiative and mitigating them.

1. None of this interests me like it interests the company

Some benefit plans skew significantly towards cutting medical costs but not towards the true wellness plan goal: making employees happier and healthier. If the main idea is saving money on insurance while compelling employees to complete health assessments, lose weight, monitor their blood pressure and cholesterol and eat like rabbits, there's no long-term wellness benefit because there is no care and concern beyond mere numbers.

2. You can't pay me to do any of that

Financial incentives of cash or gift cards motivate employees' short-term participation in wellness programs. But the trade-off is short-lived. Instead of investing in programs, the money feeds the reward needs of those least likely to retain long-term benefits. When the payoffs end, these individuals drift back to their old habits.

3. Punishment is for kids

Negative incentives, such as the threat of paying higher insurance premiums for not participating, is not the motivational message that stirs staff to action. It may motivate them to take their knowledge and talent to another company.

4. The 80/20 rule rules

Known as the Pareto Principle, it applies to health care's cost factor: about 80% of employees drive 20% of healthcare costs. These individuals are the ones less likely to need or want a wellness program; they're already active, healthy and knowledgeable about their lifestyle options. It's easier to focus wellness plans for those cooperative employees while ignoring the 1% costing the most in healthcare spending who need the most help.

5. It takes too much of my free time

Wellness programs offered at inconvenient times and locations offer the on-the-fence employees two more reasons to just say no to a healthier lifestyle. It's one thing to bring the incentives; it's another step to make them work in real life.

6. It's because I'm fat (or I smoke, or I don't exercise), right?

Wellness programs promote across-the-board, long-term lifestyle changes and creating new habits to gradually supplant old ones. Losing a few pounds or patching up to quit smoking for a few weeks isn't a lifetime commitment if the habits leading to the unhealthy lifestyle creep right back. It is essential to develop and implement long-term programs.

7. Top management does not care about our health

The disconnect between the CEO and line staff is apparent when the corporate wellness package is foisted on employees, while photos of the obese, cigar-chomping owner appear in every public space, media handout and local newspaper story. The notion of "if it's good enough for me, it should be good enough for everyone" breeds a certain expectation and if unmet, considerable resentment and eventual participant dropouts.

8. You're telling me, not asking me

Employee input is vital to the wellness program's success. Use written surveys and focus groups and discover what staff want. Managers may love a gym, sauna and organic food-only cafeteria, while employees favor paid time off to compete in running or triathlon events, sessions with a nutritionist and yoga classes.

Healthy habits develop in a supportive environment. Encourage employees to work their lifestyle changes like any other work-related project; as a team, setting goals, meeting challenges and considering failure as a chance to regroup and retry from a different point of view.

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