I’ve been hearing some pretty against-the-grain opinions on wellness lately and wanted to share them with you. For most of the last five years or so, the conventional wisdom on wellness programs is that health risk assessments and biometric screenings are the way to get the best data on employee health status, you have to juice participation by offering incentives and you have to be prepared to spend a pretty penny to get tangible results.
In just the last week, two professionals — one in the wellness industry, the other a benefits practitioner like yourselves — have told me the exact opposite: that starting wellness programs can be cheap, incentives are unnecessary and HRAs are flawed and in fact, can be dangerous for your wellness efforts.
Cue the Twilight Zone theme song.
In a recent conversation with Danna Korn, CEO and co-founder of Sonic Boom Wellness in Carlsbad, Calif., she had this to say about incentives:
“We’re adamantly against using cash and gift cards, because people can easily go out and spend it on donuts and cigarettes and forget how or why they earned it. We feel more strongly about trophy-value prizes; people put that $4 water bottle on their desk and [coworkers say], 'Whoa, you must have gotten to level Mock 1 on Sonic Boom!' There’s recognition that’s far more effective than bribery.”
Korn has an even lower opinion of health risk assessments, saying that, “We would argue that not only are health risk assessments unnecessary, but they can actually be dangerous, because [a participant could be] giving an answer that you know is the ‘right’ answer but isn’t a truthful answer. Then, you get this great wellness report and think, ‘Wow, I’m really in great shape! I don’t need to make any changes in my lifestyle.’ It gives a completely false sense of health status, both on an individual and on an aggregate level.”
Interesting, no? Noodle that for a while (and check out my full Q&A with Korn in the June 15 EBN), then head over to BenefitsTV to see
Around the three-minute mark, Davis says that wellness programs can be — gasp! — inexpensive to launch.
“Honestly, a lot of the first, second and third steps in wellness don’t need to cost a lot of money. To build in walking meetings doesn’t cost any money … putting up signs to talk about healthy choices in the cafeteria doesn’t cost a lot of money. If you really want to think about wellness you don’t have to think about lots of money; you just have to think creatively.”
Is your company thinking creatively about wellness? Can it be as inexpensive as Davis says and still be effective? Do you agree with Korn that HRAs can be “dangerous”? Share your thoughts in the comments.
