26 Jul Why is Engaging Employees on Wellness so Hard?

by: Helen Box-Farnen
Source: eba.benefitnews.com

Employee engagement is the goal of just about every wellness and health management program. You need to engage employees to be more active, eat better, get more sleep.  … You get the idea.

So why is engaging employees so hard? Maybe it’s because we haven’t really thought about it from the perspective of the employee – the end-user of the wellness initiative. According to research from a partnership of Aon Hewitt and The Futures Company, most people fall into discrete attitudinal segments that influence how they think and feel about wellness.

The folks in the C-Suite and most in leadership fall into a category that embraces a sense of control and responsibility when it comes to their health. And, they see wellness as part of the solution to important business problems: lowering costs and increasing productivity.

The average worker, on the other hand, has a completely different mindset. Here are a few of the attitudes that define nearly half of the U.S. population:

• Time-starved
• Seeks entertainment
• Family-oriented
• Stressed
• Likes high-tech media and social networking
• Interested in group activities and competition
• Wants to look and feel good
• Wants recognition for their accomplishments
• Trusts friends and family as information sources

In addition, while you might appreciate a lot of detail, the people you need to engage are not information-junkies. Try this approach with your clients and see if it doesn’t engage more of their workforce:

• Make it entertaining and create some buzz: To get employees’ attention, it needs to be fun, hip, humorous, and exciting.
• Appeal to what’s important to me: Tell employees how it will help them look good, feel good, and be more confident.
• Make it easy: Today’s workers are stressed and starved for time, so it needs to be simple and uncomplicated.
• Make me feel part of a community: Family and friends are important, and people like to feel connected to others.

Whether you are advising a client about products and services that will help them engage employees in wellness behaviors or you’re a benefits executive needing to achieve business objectives through improved health, wellness, and benefits consumerism, being successful might mean stepping outside of your own attitudes. Instead of approaching wellness as a way to solve the company’s issues – sell it to employees as a way to solve their issues. In other words, if you make it about them, you might just get what you need.