By Anthony Vecchione
Integrating wellness services with other workplace health and safety initiatives is a challenge for most organizations.
According to a panel of experts that spoke last October at Ryan Associates’ 28th Annual National Conference in Philadelphia, to be successful at integrating wellness services, a culture that prioritizes employee well-being has to exist – and that requires support from the executive suite.
Terri Merritt-Worden, vice president of partnership operations at Franklin, TN-based Healthways, explained to conference attendees that a leading driver of employee engagement in any company-sponsored wellness program will always be the authentic concern of upper and mid-level management for their workers’ health and well-being.
Company leaders should continually show concern for their employees and communicate the value of a healthy lifestyle and ongoing self-care, Ms. Merritt-Worden said.
Aligning workplace practices and policies to enhance employee well-being is recommended, as is having an employer reiterate their commitment to the individual employee’s health goals, Ms. Merritt-Worden said. “We also know it’s important to invest in supporting people’s well-being through wellness programs and initiatives and through the benefits that we create that communicate that [employee] well-being is important to the organization.”
Establishing a culture of well-being can favorably impact future healthcare costs as well, Ms. Merritt-Worden said. She pointed to a study that examined the experience of health plan members who participated in a survey of well-being measures. The results showed that for each additional point of well-being, hospital admission rates decreased 2.2 percent and emergency department admissions decreased 1.7 percent
Ms. Merritt-Worden said that you could look at return on investment (ROI) in terms of healthcare utilization, but when you look at it from a productivity perspective, studies show that well-being is a stronger predictor of worker productivity than the presence of chronic disease. Ms. Warden said data from a study examining workers in three different companies revealed that, whether or not they had diabetes or other risk factors, the employee’s perception of his or her own well-being was a better predictor of their actual productivity.
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Common Barriers
Sometimes a wellness program doesn’t take hold because the company’s culture or environment is inadvertently not supporting its goals.
“Don’t get turned off by the word culture,” said Patricia Flynn, an independent worksite health and wellness consultant based in Somerset, NJ. Ms.Flynn stressed the importance of defining “culture of health.” For example, a culture of health can be described as a healthy workplace intentionally designed to support people. In other words, does your employer support your health and well-being? If the answer is yes, what exactly is he or she is doing that is supportive?
Ms. Flynn added that it is imperative to understand the steps required to create a culture of health and to identify the landmines. “If an employee is healthy and emotionally happy it will be a win, but the whole organization has to be onboard and supportive, including middle management,” Ms.Flynn said. Time, affordability, and work environment are among the barriers to staying healthy. Ms. Flynn said if an employee has a supportive work environment, they tend to believe they can be healthier. She pointed to research on what consumers (i.e., workers) are
more likely to do in an organization with a strong culture of health. They include:
- Have a physical exam every year
- Exercise three days a week
- Rate their own health as very good or excellent
- Rank the health information they get from their employer as influential “In a strong culture of health, [employees] are more likely to say they have control over their health, less likely to report that stress has a negative impact and more likely to report that they are happy o extremely happy at work,” Ms. Flynn said.
Another key to successfully integrating workplace wellness services is inviting new employees into a company’s wellness program and helping them feel engaged and supported. According to Randy Van Straten, vice president of business health at Bellin Health in Green Bay, WI, doing this will set your organization apart from others in the market because new employees will feel Valued.
Credibility in the marketplace is also key, Mr. Van Straten said. “An organization has to ask, ‘How can we go out and help people with their health if we aren’t being role models?’”
One solution is to redesign your company’s health plan to include more engagement activities and incentives. “We provided resources,” Mr. Van Straten said of Bellin’s wellness program. “The key is removing barriers to access so that people [who] need care can get care and there are no [cost] barriers.”
Focusing on value-based primary care is also a good strategy. At Bellin, Mr. Van Straten said, the cost of primary care was removed for individuals with a chronic condition. “We require everyone to have a family doctor––a primary care physician (PCP). If they don’t go through the PCP for a referral to a specialist, they will get a 20 percent extra co-insurance on their services.”
Mr. Van Straten said the results have been positive. “We’re averaging 10 percent below the [healthcare] costs of the average employer. In addition, employees feel more empowered and Bellin’s health risk assessment scores have improved.”
Creating An Awareness Campaign
Integrating wellness services arguably starts with a solid awareness campaign. For example, consider your branding. Make sure it’s consistent with your message and resonates with your target population, said Ms. Merritt Worden. “[Your] campaign needs to stretch across different time periods, both the pre-launch of the campaign, the launch, and the ongoing program. Most importantly, it needs to be built on behavioral economics.” That is, the science of human cognition, time management, and other human factors.
Ms. Merritt-Worden suggested the following tips for a successful wellness campaign:
- Reach out to everybody, whether they’re on your benefit plan or not, because everybody is affected and everybody interacts.
- Focus not only on the times that you need to give information but often more importantly on how to reach people on autopilot
- Avoid throwing too much information at people. Ensure that people are getting the information when they need it. “We spend time and money on marketing and incentives, said Ms. Merritt-Worden, but we want to influence all the factors that motivate people. That includes leadership, policy, benefits, social networks, and the places where we live, work, and play.” Don’t stop at physical health. Look at the person’s sense of well-being. Well-being is not just an event, it’s an ongoing process.
Marketing Wellness services
When it comes to marketing wellness services, there’s an inherent dilemma, said Frank Leone, president and CEO of Santa Barbara-based Ryan Associates. Mr. Leone pointed out that everyone wants a receptive audience of employers, but it’s not always easy to convince employers that they will have a positive ROI.
The next step, Mr. Leone said, is to do what has to be done to increase your chances of getting from point A to point B. “You must be less of a salesperson and more of an educator and counselor.” Employers are looking for a liaison, a confidant they can work with as they go through the process. “You have to understand your product, and in wellness services, the product is not simple,” Mr. Leone said. “It’s not a commodity, it’s a lifestyle and that makes it more complex.”
One solution, Mr. Leone suggested, is for employers to engage in one-on-one education and counseling from the people who are responsible for product design so they can genuinely understand what it’s all about and how it fits into the larger picture. “Wellness is not an isolated silo or commodity, it’s really part of a larger integrated whole that addresses workplace wellness in its totality.” Mr. Leone said. The idea that needs to be articulated, said Mr. Leone, is that you’re not there to sell wellness services, but to develop a relationship with an organization, to bring everything to bear and do all you can to ensure the best possible health status of a worker population.
With wellness programs you need to have somebody actually go through the A-to-Z experience of it and be involved, see it, and observe it in order to discuss it, he said. “You want to establish value. That’s the watchword for the coming year.”Mr. Leone suggested the following guidelines when considering the top-down approach:
- Begin by executing a program with your internal workforce.
- Contract with one major employer in your market as a type of beta client.
- Get some experience under your belt
- Earn the credibility of having accomplished this with a well-known organization and that will make future sales easier
“There’s a great herd mentality out there in the marketplace and it makes people think, ‘If this organization bought into it then it must be good because this organization is so well thought of in our market,’” Mr. Leone said. But the first step in this top down approach is to develop a model internal program and do it well internally, said Mr. Leone. So what is the key to creating a culture of wellness and integrating wellness services?
For starters, according to Ms. Flynn, find that value proposition, use a strategic collaborative approach, learn what has succeeded from the other disciplines, and recognize that health is personal. “It takes time. You can’t show participation results in six months,” Ms. Flynn said. “Really changing a culture into an [environment] in which employees can feel healthy requires some patience.”
Mr. Leone emphasized both the importance of cultivating workplace champions who can act as a liaison at the company and developing a tailor-made program. “It’s important that you customize,” he added.
