Why your wellness program isn’t working: Top 11 reasons
What keeps employees from participating in employers’ carefully crafted wellness programs?
That’s the question HealthMine, a provider of a personalized health portal for businesses and insurers, attempted to answer with a new study. The HealthMine study asked employees about the greatest obstacles and barriers that kept them from participating in wellness programs.
The results of that study give employers some key insight into the design flaws and other obstacles that are hurting the success of their programs.
Obvious, not-so-obvious reasons
Here are the top 11 wellness participation barriers cited by individuals in the study:
- Lack of time (27%)
- Inconvenient location (25%)
- Inconvenient time (24%)
- Awareness of program (17%)
- Privacy concerns (14%)
- Pressure to finish work (13%)
- Security concerns (13%)
- Lack of boss’ support (10%)
- Too busy working (9%)
- Just not interested (9%), and
- Family doesn’t back it (5%).
Key takeaways
As HealthMine CEO and President Bryce Williams said of the results: “Plan sponsors can help members by making programs more convenient and meeting people where they are.”
While some of the obstacles in the report are obvious (lack of or inconvenient time), some of the cited issues give HR pros a blueprint on what not to do when designing a wellness program. Two examples: “Awareness of program” or “lack of boss’ support.”
Communication and upper-management support are two essential elements of any successful wellness initiative. So it’s alarming that not knowing about a program or, worse, not wanting to tick off their boss by taking part in a wellness program are cited by employees as top wellness program barriers.
If you’re looking for some best practices in wellness-program design, our sister site HR Benefits Alert offers a guide on the 10 essential elements all wellness plans should include. This covers everything from the basics (assessments, health coach, etc.) to under-utilized essentials (medical self-care, mental health focus).
