Ways to Build Employee Engagement In Your Corporate Wellness Program
Corporate wellness programs are regarded successful only if they drive active participation and people are engaged in them. When several people commit to adopting a healthier lifestyle, the results can be amazing. Increased productivity, improved morale, and lower healthcare costs are just the tip of the iceberg for employers. It doesn’t even take into consideration the value of healthy and happy employees. However, with very few employees putting efforts into improving their health, employers are seeking different ways to engage employees in wellness.
Employees usually consider their wellness program as a mandate imposed on them by their superiors as a tool to increase productivity. What most of these wellness programs fail to answer is “Why should an employee use this program?” If the employees only see a wellness program as a way of increasing their productivity, their engagement will be superficial. They will participate in the wellness program because their company imposed it on them. However, for an employee wellness program to be successful users have to show a sustained engagement.
The current state of Workplace Wellness includes companies that offer occasional health checks and informational resources to spread awareness about healthy living. However, these offerings fail to motivate employees and engage them to develop a healthy lifestyle. Below mentioned are five ways that can help you boost engagement in your employee wellness program:
1. Make It Interesting
Be it any game or competition, we’re more likely to get motivated and involved when our friends get involved. This flicker can spread like wildfire and can get your entire organization engaged. Social incentives are a cost-effective and captivating way to recruit and engage all those who may otherwise be beyond your reach.
Social incentives are simple. Setting up teams provides accountability, social support, the spirit of friendly competition, altruistic opportunities, and public recognition. With social incentives, people adopt healthy behaviors because they are liable to participate in group activities as well as help others. Over time, all these activities become part of the lifestyle, drive healthy behaviors, and create lasting effects on health.
2. Track, Report, & Update
When participating in a challenge, people would want to know their performance against all those around them. This information provides a benchmark for success and allows people to track their performance and keep the competitive spirit going.
At the time of hosting wellness activities, it is always recommended to share results with all the employees who participated in the activity. For example, if you’re organizing a walking challenge, inform everyone regarding their step count and the average step count of an employee walking per day. Update weekly reports of what’s going on, who is performing well, and what steps should others take to jump into the action as well as provide a recap of all the amazing activities that have been going on.
3. Use The Power Of Social
When you put in effort and exercise, the people surrounding you are more likely to get inspired and exercise. It might appear intuitive, but these forces are powerful! By utilizing this insight and a slight imagination, you can enhance the health of the population at large.
To put it simply, people get involved through social recruiting, and further accountability and social support keep them engaged. When you promise a friend to meet at 6 a.m. for a run, you’re going to turn up anyhow, regardless of snow, rain, cold, or perfect weather. You won’t let your promise go in vain or let your friend down. A similar concept can be scaled and applied to corporate wellness programs. With a social approach to wellness, the whole organization can be engaged in walking meetings and friendly challenges, comparing each other’s step totals and pushing one another to attain their wellness goals.
4. Gamification
We all like to be rewarded for our actions – it gives us a sense of satisfaction that enables us to keep performing reward-worthy tasks. This gamification concept is the number one solution to boost engagement in any program. For instance, even successful loyalty programs have a gamified platform where they reward buyers for shopping. Truworth Wellness has incorporated this concept of gamification in its comprehensive wellness platform. It helps users earn reward points for completing every single task, whether it is logging in daily, tracking their vitals, reading articles, or exercising every day. They can later redeem those points for exciting prizes.
Furthermore, for a gamification strategy to be successful, it is crucial to identify the sources of motivation and correct procedures to engage people. Wellness programs will be more exciting if, in addition to rewards, users are given a way of sharing their achievements with their peers. We provide an inbuilt social network where people can share their accomplishments with friends and colleagues. Users would be able to support their friends and get motivated to perform healthy actions.
5. Personalize the Experience
Personalization can significantly enhance engagement by making employees feel that the wellness program is tailored specifically to their needs and interests. One effective method is to offer personalized wellness plans that take into account individual health goals, preferences, and fitness levels.
By using data from health assessments or wellness surveys, you can create customized wellness journeys for employees, offering them specific recommendations for exercise, nutrition, and mental well-being. Personalized challenges and goals that align with employees’ interests—whether it's a step challenge for fitness enthusiasts or a stress management program for those seeking mental peace—can make the wellness program more relevant and motivating.
Benefits of Employee Involvement
- You encourage better performance
- You attract and promote talent
- You quickly spot HR issues
- You build up better products
- You become more profitable
- Your customer satisfaction increases
- You uplift your teams
- Your turnover costs decrease
- Your ideas become sharper
Just like diseases, healthy behaviors are contagious. We are more likely to exercise when we see our friends exercise. It creates a long-lasting user engagement as employees have a sense of inherent motivation to participate in a wellness program. Truworth Wellness ensures employees participate in the program to keep themselves healthy and happy instead of simply increasing their productivity.5.