Why You Should Never Spend More Than $19 On Wellness

Incentives

Use of financial rewards and penalties, as a means to get employees to adopt healthy

behaviors so the company can reduce its healthcare costs, is all the rage and its use is

doubling, every year or so, now.

What have you been spending (per employee) to get them to participate in your company's

wellness programming? Probably, more than twenty bucks, huh? Maybe you dangle a $500

carrot towards each of their HSAs or divide health premiums into tiers based on certain

healthy or unhealthy criteria? That all adds up to a lot of dough and yet might appear to be

working at this point... but have you ever wondered how sustainable that approach might be?

As engagement specialists, we believe you should never spend more than $19 because $20

starts to feel like money and money doesn't motivate in the long run.

Research shows this approach, using financial carrots and sticks, is not likely to result in

lasting health behavior change as you will have to continue to increase the size of the carrots

to keep employees motivated. It makes more sense to help employees be self-directed and

intrinsically motivated as they progress towards adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Glessner Rewards bases our approach in helping organizations achieve long term success

with employee wellness programming on five best practices indentified by Health

Enhancement Systems in its well-researched white paper titled, How Financial Incentives &

Disincentives Undermine Wellness.

Want to see the report, How Financial Incentives & Disincentives Undermine Wellness, for

yourself? It's excellent and well worth your time. Email us at diane@glessnerrewards.com

and we will send to the link.

The five best practices, for sustaining good results , with your wellness

init iatives are:

• Communicate a meaningful rationale for wellness programming.

• Respect the need for autonomy. (participation should always be optional)

• Reward cooperation and progress, not outcomes.

• Make it easy for employees to monitor and celebrate progress.

• Emphasize fun & being part of the team. (supportive conditions)

If you are committed to your program for the long haul, we offer you the workforce tools you

need to communicate, reward, & celebrate your way to a healthier workforce (and lower

healthcare costs) and it won't cost you an 'arm and a leg" to do it either.

Want to see the report, How Financial Incentives & Disincentives Undermine Wellness, for

yourself? It's excellent and well worth your time. Email us at diane@glessnerrewards.com

and we will send to the link.