The frantic rise of consumer wellness: Combat the craze or ride the wave?

In case you missed it, Playboy is a wellness company now. So is Amway. At L’Oreal it’s not about the makeup. They are filling the fundamental need for beauty, which taps deep into our “sense of belonging, self-realization and self-confidence.” Sleep Number doesn’t sell beds. Its mission to improve lives by individuating sleep experiences. Even building a new home is a wellness experience now, with companies like Evolutionary Home Builders offering health-focused dwellings to maximize your wellbeing.

Wellness is currently en vogue, and in a very big way. Companies of all kinds want in on the gold rush. To put things into perspective, the global wellness economy is currently valued at $4.5 trillion, based on 2018 data. The vast majority of this value is generated by consumer products versus corporate solutions.

Read more: A valuable wellness program must change the employee experience

In fact, workplace wellness only accounted for $48 billion of this total, which even trailed Thermal/Mineral Springs (a $56 billion segment). Not surprisingly, workplace wellness was light years behind the beauty and anti-aging, weight loss and physical fitness sectors.

While employees resist screenings, dodge health coaching calls and neglect wellness portals, they are actively consuming everything from CBD to essential oils to celery juice and even vampire facials. While corporate wellness programs struggle to successfully bribe individuals with premium differentials, gift cards and gym memberships, many of the same individuals are voluntarily shelling out hundreds and thousands of dollars in hard-earned cash for Peloton bikes, on-demand fitness courses, sound baths and plant-based cookbooks. Hey, as long as employees are getting healthier, it’s all good. Right? National health statistics alone are enough to prove this is fiction, not fact. Despite the consumer wellness craze, our workforces are less healthy than ever.

Read more: The 16 most popular employee perks

There are major issues with the growing clout of consumer wellness products and services. For one, many consumer wellness options perpetuate inequity which is already a critical issue in our society. Those with money and means can access the tools for a better life that marketers have handcrafted for us all. Those on the outside can only watch as they feel further disenfranchised and less motivated to access the wellness options that are more readily available to them.

Consumer wellness solutions are not necessarily peer-reviewed, clinically-sound and based on science. For every legitimate product, there are many others who are hopping on the wellness bandwagon with misleading, ineffective, or even dangerous, offerings. And then you have the explosion of wellness “experts.” In today’s society, we are handing over the authority of wellness to celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Zack Efron. We are deferring to multilevel marketers who push products as “coaches” and to social media influencers who parrot whatever advice and “science” gets the clicks and the likes and the big brand paydays.

In the process, we’ve democratized health information and largely bypassed physicians, clinicians and wellness professionals. It’s not a good thing when the credibility and expertise of a trained professional is ignored in favor of someone with a knack for Instagram filters and motivational quotes.

Finally, consumer wellness solutions are not integrated into the healthcare system, unless the consumer takes very proactive, and unlikely, steps to communicate with their physician about their wellness endeavors. In a time where we need more connections and fewer silos in healthcare, the consumer wellness industry is creating more of them.

So, what does the workplace wellness industry do with all of this?

First, let’s ask ourselves a really tough question. Why is it that we can’t even pay people to use our services while consumer brands generate billions of dollars in revenue because people want to buy what they are selling? It’s not that people aren’t interested in wellness. They aren’t interested in our version of it.

It starts with how we speak. We use language that isn’t consumable, industry jargon like biometrics and social determinants of health. We care about these terms in the wellness community, but they mean nothing to the consumer. We have to speak their language. Look and listen to how consumer brands package and promote wellness. It won’t take long for you to admit that corporate programs don’t sound the same.

Read more: CVS addresses holistic wellness with new suite of benefits

We also aren’t doing the best job of innovating. We have invested in leveling up our member portals, in expanding our e-learning libraries and adding new challenges to our programs. But it might be time to step further outside the box. Fast Company recently published a list of the ten most innovative wellness companies. The corporate wellness industry was nowhere to be found. But a company who makes postpartum underwear made the list, as did a mechanical massage tool for sore muscles. The world as we know it has shifted dramatically in recent years. It doesn’t seem like we’ve done all we can to stay out in front of it.

As a last observation, we haven’t incorporated consumer wellness trends into our toolkit. Many of the products and services out there actually bring value to individuals. Part of our job should be to help our employees cut through the noise, make wiser choices and have greater flexibility when it comes to their wellness journeys. We could amplify the positives of consumer wellness and mitigate the risks and the dark corners of the consumer wellness world.

This doesn’t mean we offer Playboy TV subscriptions or give away tech-enabled mattresses during open enrollment. It does mean that we can learn from what’s happening in the consumer wellness space. We can listen more actively to the consumers we serve. And we can even potentially leverage the best parts of consumer-based solutions to lead corporate wellness into a brighter, bolder future.