Maintaining Participation
When you first introduce a wellness program, employees will have a higher level of interest because it is new and exciting. However, people get busy and the “new” wears off. You may have employees who are already active and eating well, so they will stay engaged from the beginning. However, others employees may be more difficult to keep engaged, especially toward the middle of year. Below are tips from The Benefits Guide and The Bailey Group on how to revamp your wellness program and maintain participation!
Ideas to Revamp Your Wellness Program
- Wellness Days: Our favorite idea from The Benefits Guide is to incorporate a regular wellness day. One day a month, or even once a week, try something new and exciting for wellness day. This could be a workout class, like yoga or kick boxing, a guided meditation, a healthy cooking class, a financial wellness workshop, etc.
- Have a Competition or Challenge: Communicate with employees and see if team or individual competitions and challenges would be motivating. You can also have employees weigh in on prize ideas to spark more interest!
- Set New Goals: Whether it’s an organizational goal everyone’s participating in, team goals, or individual goals, all can encourage more participation. As a leader, participate in goal setting and help other employees set their goals too.
Additional Tips
- Reevaluate Incentives: Offering prizes or perks for participating are always a great idea to help keep employees engaged. Keep in mind all employees are motivated by different things, and those things can change over time. If you haven’t updated your incentives in awhile, it might be time to communicate with your employees about what they need as encouragement. Examples can include: achievement awards, public recognition, merchandise, gift cards, monetary awards, entertainment events, or even additional paid time-off.
- Recognize Stages and Milestones: Breaking old habits and forming new, healthy habits is what wellness programs are all about. The first six weeks to six months are crucial to forming new habits. Employees may get bored or distracted during this time and need additional encouragement. After six months, employees are well on their way to making permanent lifestyle changes, though they may still need friendly reminders to help them reach the year mark. Pay attention to what stage your employees are in and plan wellness campaigns, events, or healthy work lunches accordingly to help keep them on track, and celebrate when milestones are reached!
