Ever wonder why some corporate wellness programs struggle to get results and others don’t?
When you’re trying to figure that out by comparing your approach to other corporate wellness programs, it can be hard to see from the outside looking in.
When you hit a roadblock like this as a wellness manager, administrator or broker, it’s easy to second-guess your approach to running a wellness program:
- Maybe it’s your vendor
- Maybe it’s your wellness initiatives
- Maybe your incentives aren’t good enough to encourage participation
- Maybe the user interface of your wellness platform is confusing
- Maybe your wellness strategy is all wrong
Sound familiar?
Before you make any changes to your wellness program or rush out to replicate everything some other wellness program is doing, take a step back.
The real reason some corporate wellness programs struggle may surprise you…
The Knee-Jerk Reaction to Improve Wellness Outcomes
You’re in the wellness business to promote health, prevent disease, improve productivity, control healthcare costs, and improve the quality of life for your population or your clients.
So what happens when you reach a population health milestone and the outcomes don’t show improvements, cost savings, or a boost in productivity and happiness?
If you’re contemplating a knee-jerk reaction to fix the problem, you’re not alone.
Think about how you might respond to the following after reviewing a year of population health data:
- Health risks for your population haven’t changed much
- Wellness program participation is stagnant or even lower than it was
- Health claims and healthcare costs are on the rise
- Your C-suite leadership team wants to see a return on investment
- Participants have asked for features and programs you can’t deliver with the tools or budget you have to work with
If your knee-jerk reaction is to check your vendor contract to find out when it ends or how much it would cost to break the agreement, that’s pretty normal.
It’s one reason so many corporate wellness programs change vendors every couple of years. It’s easy to look for a quick fix and start thinking:
- Maybe the grass is greener on the other side
- Maybe you need a new wellness vendor, a new platform, or a new strategy
- Maybe one of those cookie-cutter corporate wellness programs is what you need
If you’ve ever thought about your wellness program this way, join the club. The trouble is, there usually isn’t a quick fix, and a new set of corporate wellness vendors comes with a new set of challenges.
How Would You Fix a Corporate Wellness Headache?
If you have a pounding headache, what would you do?
If you go with a quick-fix option, like taking over-the-counter medication, you might get some temporary relief.
Maybe the headache goes away for a few hours or a few days. But then it’s back. Maybe the symptoms are worse. And this time more over-the-counter medicine doesn’t work.
Now what?
You go see a doctor who specializes in treating headaches.
Instead of quickly writing a prescription, the doctor takes time to sift through all the variables that could be linked to your headache problems (mold, pets, stress, nutrition, poor sleep, etc.) And you get a personalized treatment plan to help you manage your headaches. It’s a long-term fix. You feel better. You’re happier.
If you want to build an effective wellness program, you’ve got to take a personalized approach that makes sense for your organization and your population.
Build Your Own Corporate Wellness Program
Wondering why so many corporate wellness programs fall short or hop from one strategy and vendor to the next?
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions or cookie-cutter answers to designing corporate wellness programs. It’s the surprising reason so many wellness programs struggle.
- So what’s the best corporate wellness program for your organization? It’s the one that you build.
It’s that simple. And it’s why we built the FitLyfe 360 platform. Every detail and feature of the platform is customizable and configurable.
If you want a comprehensive wellness program, use every tool and feature. Or if something as simple as a health risk assessment or biometric screening is the scope of your wellness program, that’s fine too.
That’s the kind of personalized approach to wellness every organization needs and every population deserves. The best wellness program is the one that you build, not a cookie-cutter fix.
Ready to start building your wellness program?
See FitLyfe 360 in action
