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This post from Carrie Greene, General Manager of Interactive Health, was published in the most recent issue of “HealthCare Consumerism Solutions Magazine” from the Institute for HealthCare Consumerism. The original piece can be found here. 

There is much good news to report in the world of employee well-being.

To begin, more and more workplaces incorporate wellness programs. According to the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2015 Health and Well-being Touchstone Survey, just under three-fourths of companies offer some kind of wellness program.

Further, SHRM reports in its 2015 Employee Benefits Survey that another eight percent of companies plan to offer wellness programs in the next 12 months.

Employers clearly recognize that healthy employees help reduce costs, grow output, improve culture, increase retention and more. As Allen Buechel, the county executive for Fond du Lac County in Wisconsin, has said about the effects of their wellness program: “Better health positively affects absenteeism and productivity.”

It’s now time to increase focus on the next stages of workplace wellness: participation and engagement.

These are related but different goals. Participation means employees sign up for the wellness benefits their employers provide. Engagement means employees actively take advantage of the programs and offerings – to take active control of their health.

Engagement is where the “wellness rubber” meets the “healthier outcomes road.”

Engagement is tough, because it means changing behavior – eating healthier, walking instead of driving, standing instead of sitting and more. It also can mean exercising, which is hard to start and hard to maintain.

But an important trend is emerging (or should we say, reemerging) in workplace wellness engagement – entertainment. Here’s what I mean:

We all do what we enjoy. We need to find and implement creative ways to connect personal enjoyment with workplace wellness activities. We need to make wellness a type of entertainment – something fun to do that fits with people’s interests.

I know this approach can work, because I’ve seen it in action. The key is to think like any other kind of retail business: By paying attention to your “customers” (in this case, your employees).

I first saw this work several years ago in a program we ran for a hospital in an urban area. The employer was dedicated not only to improving patients’ health (of course), but also their employees’ health. They were and remain ahead of their time.

One of their key offerings was a kickboxing aerobics class. It was a big effort – music, instructors and equipment in a gym that could hold their anticipated 100 participants.

And yet when it launched, only 15 employees showed up. And given the ethnic mix of the employee base, it was clear that the class was a miss. None of the participants represented the ethnic minorities that comprised a majority of the employee population.

So we did what any good consumer product would do. We rebuilt and re-branded. We asked ourselves: Where do our “customers” – the employees – find entertainment? And how can we integrate that into the exercise?

Within weeks, our kickboxing aerobics class had transformed into “gospel aerobics”. The instructors changed the music, introduced dancing and movement and re-marketed the class. Soon, we had nearly 60 employees participating regularly. Importantly, they represented a full cross-section of the employee base.

The approach has worked in other situations:

• With one defense industry employer who offered a terrific day care program, we added a wellness class for parents to attend inside the day care facility. We held it just before pick-up time and integrated parenting tips with the wellness information. We even included tips for how to get your kids to eat healthier. The class was a hit.
• Golf is another big draw. We’ve used the game to engage executives into supporting their own wellness programs. At one business strategy consulting firm, we introduced a “golf for beginners” program that mixed wellness and golf instruction.

The key in any of these efforts is to identify the wellness elements that need to be employed (health information, eating tips, exercises, etc.) and the entertainment that will attract the masses. Then integrate. Host the activity and mix in some of the wellness. Or lead with the wellness and integrate some of the entertainment. Time after time, we’ve found that starting small – finding the enjoyable way to launch employee engagement – invariably leads to increased and consistent engagement over the long run.

Above all, remember the old line from show business: Keep 'em entertained, and they’ll keep coming back.