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Employers often use a range of tactics to increase the effectiveness of their workplace wellness plans. According to Business Insurance, one tactic that continues to grow is outcomes-based incentives. In other words, rewarding employees on measurable, documentable progress.

The piece calls out results from two recent surveys:

• “Twenty-three percent of large employers polled in a survey released in December by Mercer L.L.C. said their wellness programs include incentives tied to an employee's achieving — or at least demonstrating progress toward — a certain health status or biometric reading, up from 20% in 2013.”
• “Similarly, a September survey by Towers Watson & Co. found that 18% of employers already use outcomes-based wellness incentives, while another 10% plan to do so this year.”
• “Another 48% of employers plan to add a results-based incentive strategy to their wellness program by 2016 or 2017, according to Towers Watson's survey.”

Another trend the piece notes: “Value-of-investment metrics as an alternative way to measure a wellness program's positive and/or negative effects.”

And there's this interesting take on ROI: “Unlike the cost/benefit-oriented return-on-investment assessments many employers use to gauge their wellness programs' financial viability, experts say value-of-investment assessments examine the breadth of a wellness program's cost-effectiveness relative to an employer's other operations.”