Why workforce wellness programs must reward more than health tasks

Even amid rising health care costs, employers continue to make workforce wellness a top priority. Nearly all plan to maintain funding for such programs at current levels, according to the 2024 Business Group on Health survey, and more are now offering incentives for employees to participate.¹

Still, despite the heightened focus of recent years, employees don’t always experience progress. Less than two-thirds of workers rate their physical and mental well-being as “excellent” or “good” and less than half rate their social and financial well-being positively, according to Deloitte.²

What’s behind the disconnect from C-suite intention and workforce impact? Outdated approaches and conventional programs, which tend to focus largely on physical health and to favor one-time tasks over sustained behavior change.

Employee health is a complex constellation of physical, mental, social and financial well-being — but traditional employee well-being programs don’t reflect this reality. And while encouraging employees to, say, sign up for a biometric screening or join a gym is certainly worthwhile, those sorts of one-time tasks barely scratch the surface of what a holistic, future-ready well-being strategy can actually achieve.

To better ensure their well-being focus and funding helps fuel workforce results, employers must let go of stale strategies built around one-and-done health tasks. They should instead embrace a holistic, whole-person approach to well-being that aims to help employees cultivate long-term behavior change. Here’s how.

Mental health has been a red-hot topic for workforce well-being in recent years — and with good reason. But it’s important to understand that mental health isn’t a siloed issue, wholly distinct from physical health. Rather, there’s a complex interplay between mental, physical, social, and even financial health, and a decline in any one dimension can significantly impact the others.

Consider, for instance, that depression increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by about 60%.³ At the same time, the inverse is also true: People with diabetes are at much higher risk of depression, which can make it harder to effectively manage their condition and heighten the risk of poor health outcomes and costly interventions.⁴

There’s often a financial dimension at play as well, as 72% of people with uncontrolled diabetes report high levels of financial stress.⁵ Such stress can lead to high prevalence of cost-related nonadherence, such as skipping medications or delaying health care appointments, with research suggesting that as much as 21% of the variance in how well diabetes is managed is explained by financial stress.⁶

“Today, more and more workers are worried about making ends meet, dealing with chronic stress, and struggling to balance the demands of both work and personal lives,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a federal advisory on workplace wellness.⁷ “Organizations are also increasingly aware of another trade-off: when the mental health of workers suffers, so does workplace productivity, creativity and retention.”

Standalone programs aimed at improving mental or financial or social health are a start. But ideally employees wouldn’t have to proactively seek out support across a disparate array of tools. Instead, they’d experience a cohesive, integrated program that recognizes how these different health dimensions can amplify and influence one another — and is also seamless to navigate.

It’s worth noting that 68% of employees surveyed by Deloitte said they did not use the full value of the well-being resources their workplace offered because accessing programs was too time-consuming, confusing, or cumbersome.⁸

Conventional wellness programs have long been successful at incentivizing employees to complete one-time actions, such as undergoing a health assessment. But the impact of completing these tasks can be just as fleeting as the experience itself.

A more lasting impact stems from workplace programs that help employees achieve sustained behavior change. After all, healthy habits — including not smoking, getting adequate sleep and physical activity, and managing stress — are the bedrock of well-being.

And the presence or absence of such behaviors can dramatically delay or prevent the incidence of many chronic diseases, which account for 29% of employer health care costs, on average.^{9 10} How dramatically? Researchers estimate that 41% of the global disease burden is attributable to behavioral risks, such as smoking or having high blood pressure.¹¹

Cultivating behavior change demands sustained engagement, not simply a list of health recommendations and tasks to complete. That’s why the most effective well-being programs are designed to break long-term habits into small, everyday steps and to help workers build momentum through interactive design features underpinned by behavioral psychology.

Using the same messaging and motivators for a 26-year-old marathoner as a 63-year-old with heart disease might work ok if you’re simply trying to get them to do a straightforward, one-time task, like get their cholesterol levels assessed. But generic plans thwart true engagement, and latest science about habit formation shows that adoption timing varies widely from person to person — but everyone benefits from personalized support.¹²

Just as consumers have come to expect a high level of personalization in almost every aspect of their lives, workers have come to expect personalization in workplace offerings. Modern, effective well-being solutions skip the one-size-fits-all suggestions for plans that are tailored to an individual’s health needs and goals and informed by the Social Determinants of Health profile.

Employees don’t receive mandates on which tasks to complete next but are instead empowered to select their own health priorities, from a curated, targeted list of suggestions. They’re then offered a diverse slate of recommended activities, providing greater flexibility than conventional wellness plans while also helping to build their sense of self-efficacy.

Strengthening self-efficacy is a win for employers in more ways than one. In the health arena, people who believe in their ability to accomplish a task or achieve a goal are more likely to do so, of course. But that greater sense of self-efficacy can influence work as well: Research by the McKinsey Health Institute has found that one of the top contributors to productivity at work is an individual’s sense of self-efficacy.¹³

As the future of work unfolds, employers must also evolve their well-being strategy. Helping employees build long-term healthy behaviors and holistically addressing their mental, social, physical and financial well-being will unlock far greater benefits than more limited, static solutions could ever hope to achieve.

The potential dividends of adopting this modern approach to workforce well-being are tremendous.: Not only can improved health outcomes drive significant health care savings, but organizations may also be able to improve productivity and engagement, strengthen talent retention and recruitment, and strengthen overall brand value. The future of workplace well-being is here — and employers can’t afford to miss it.