Has your organization made a significant investment in a well-being program but participation rates are below expectations? Unfortunately, simply rolling out a well-being program doesn’t guarantee employees will engage with it. What does increase engagement? In this blog, we share five key drivers of meaningful employee wellness program engagement—whole person program design, seamless user experience, reach and accessibility, organizational culture and reward design—and share evidence-based tactics that can help you put these drivers into action.
Most wellness programs struggle with participation.
Low participation is rarely a motivation problem on the employees’ part. More often, it’s due to the way the program is designed. Many well-being programs are built around fragmented solutions instead of real human experiences. Employees are overwhelmed by disconnected tools, competing priorities and benefits that feel difficult to navigate or disconnected from their day-to-day needs or health status. Generic communications, low-value incentives and a lack of personalization also contribute to disengagement. Well-being is inherently personal, so programs that ignore this reality will likely see low registration and participation regardless of how much you’ve invested in the program.
What separates low-engagement programs from thriving programs?
So what makes a well-being program more relevant, accessible and engaging for employees? In the next sections, we’ll explain the five core drivers of engagement: whole person program design, seamless user experience, reach and accessibility, organizational culture and reward design. While we cover these areas individually, they should not be viewed as standalone tactics, rather as interdependent drivers that together produce measurably better outcomes.
Let’s look at the five core engagement drivers.
At WebMD Health Services, we’ve spent more than 25 years refining best practices for well-being program engagement. Our research consistently shows that organizations addressing all five areas see higher registration rates, better health assessment completion, risk reduction and stronger long-term participation.
Design for the whole person.
Employees don’t experience their lives in silos, and they don’t engage with well-being that way either. The most effective strategies create connected experiences that support employees holistically, whether they’re managing financial stress, anxiety, burnout, caregiving responsibilities, chronic conditions or all of those at once. Designing for the whole person ensures that all aspects of well-being—physical, mental, financial, social and work—are addressed. This approach also ensures that employees are empowered with the tools to create their own version of well-being.
Build an integrated program.
More programs do not automatically create more engagement. In fact, employees often disengage when they feel overwhelmed with choices or solutions feel fragmented, difficult to navigate or not relevant to them. Building an integrated program means uniting solutions, services and partners into one seamless experience, helping employees spend less time figuring out where to start and more time engaging.
Prioritize reach and accessibility.
Even the best programs fail if they’re not easy to use or reach only those who are already engaged. True engagement requires designing across roles, generations, cultures, work environments and levels of health so engagement is easy, visible and continuous. The goal is to meet every employee where they are, no matter where they work or what their health needs may be.
Embed well-being into culture.
Engagement isn’t driven by programs alone—it’s driven by culture. Employees are far more likely to participate when leadership and wellness go hand-in-hand, i.e., well-being is reflected in leadership behaviors, organizational values and the day-to-day employee experience. This makes well-being a permanent part of how the organization operates—not simply another HR initiative. WebMD works with clients to achieve this by helping leaders, wellness champions and advocates build community and model healthy behaviors themselves through leadership communication toolkits and wellness champions and Dedicated Well-Being Services. During the implementation kick-off, our teams prioritize cultural alignment to ensure we are building a program that is part of your organization.
Leverage rewards and incentives.
When they’re thoughtfully designed, incentives and rewards can play an important role in motivating participation, encouraging healthy behaviors and demonstrating the holistic value (intrinsic and extrinsic) of the well-being program. We’ll take a closer look at WebMD’s research-backed practices for designing a rewards and incentives strategy that builds true well-being.
Design programs for the whole person.
Because employees don’t live their lives in silos and don’t engage with well-being in that fashion either, the most effective strategies connect experiences versus offering disconnected moments. When employees see content that is irrelevant to their goals or health stage, they very quickly disengage. Below we address how to match content to individual needs and build structural flexibility into program design.
Match program content to individual health needs.
Strong health assessment completion rates, supplemented by effective communication, create the data foundation that is needed to personalize the program through meaningful content matching. When a participant completes the health assessment, it reveals individual health risks, allowing us to direct the participant to the right programs and resources including fun strategies like wellness challenges. The health assessment is also important for identifying participants who may benefit from health coaching or condition management programs. Based on the results, individuals can be directed to resources and personalized support designed to empower them to better understand and manage their health conditions.
At WebMD, we take a unique approach to personalization:
- Deep segmentation. Participant data collected through health assessments, an interest survey and health record information allows us to segment by a person’s interests and health status. Using details from your population data, we can also serve content to specific groups within your organization, for example by location or department.
- WebMD ONE Engine. After the data is segmented to focus on a specific group, our personalization engine can generate the resources and recommendations you want them to see that would be most beneficial and supported by your program. Our personalization engine suggests resources for age, gender, health condition information and data collected from participants’ touchpoints within the platform. The more they interact with the platform, the more personalized the recommendations will be.
- Comprehensive solutions. Offering something for everyone in your population is essential—from those maintaining good health to those managing one or more chronic conditions. By building a wide range of offerings, people can use the tools and resources they need most. The use of segmentation and personalization also allows participants to see and access the most relevant items for their unique situation.
- Meaningful incentives. Behavioral science confirms that sometimes people need a little “nudge” to start or stop a behavior, especially when it comes to health. When done properly, incentives can provide that nudge—but they must be meaningful for the participant. Offer varied incentives for different activities, aligning them with your organization’s culture and core values.
What happens when these key elements of personalization are in place? Our data shows that 90% of WebMD Health Services participants feel motivated to make healthy changes and 88% of clients experience improvements in the health status of their population.
Build flexibility into your program design.
Designing a well-being program that addresses the whole person also requires a program architecture that enables participants to engage at their own pace, through their preferred channels and on topics relevant to their personal health priorities. Programs that are rigid and have mandatory tracks and narrow participation windows tend not to achieve desired results. It’s important for HR leaders to ensure that the well-being platform and program design can accommodate diverse schedules, ability levels and the full range of well-being dimensions.
Build a cohesive, integrated program.
As mentioned previously, simply having more well-being tools in your program doesn’t automatically create more engagement. In fact, the opposite is true. Employees tend to disengage when solutions feel fragmented, hard to navigate or disconnected from their everyday experience. An integrated program like WebMD ONE unites solutions, services and a partner ecosystem into one seamless experience that simplifies access to resources, communications, support and broader benefits.
The bottom line: employees spend less time figuring out where to start and more time engaging. And, integrated programs reduce duplicative vendors and deliver more comprehensive, actionable reporting. Next, we’ll describe how to create intuitive pathways and use consistent messaging and branding to boost engagement.
Create intuitive pathways to care and support.
Simplifying the experience for employees starts with helping users navigate to the right solution, not every solution. When you integrate well-being offerings into a connected experience, you reduce duplication and benefits confusion, creating intuitive pathways to care, education and support. It’s critical to periodically audit the vendor mix to reveal overlap and gaps, and to map the employee journey so the next best step is always clear—regardless of where someone enters the program.
Use consistent messaging and branding.
Consistent messaging and branding across program elements and communications reinforces a single, cohesive well-being program rather than a collection of separate point solutions. This helps employees understand how the pieces fit together and reduces the cognitive load that can sometimes drive disengagement. Platforms, emails and onsite touchpoints should all employ consistent naming, visual identity and voice. Our Communications Strategy Team through our Branding Service, creates a custom well-being program branding, including program name, logo and messaging.
Communicate in ways that reach every employee.
Clear, consistent and frequent communication is essential to improve employee engagement with a well-being program. While it’s tempting to send out a general announcement about the program or simply include messages during benefits enrollment, you’ll achieve better results with a well-coordinated, ongoing campaign. In fact, we’ve found that clients who use WebMD communications services achieve: 30% higher registration rate, 45% higher Health Assessment completion rate and five times more site visits. Our Communications Strategy Team creates an annual communications calendar based on your program design. The goal is to communicate often about your program, more than just at launch time. Two important elements of a well-being program communication strategy are segmentation and multi-channel delivery, which we’ll cover next.
Use segmentation to send the right message.
Segmentation means delivering different messages to different employee groups based on factors such as health status, program stage, location or role. For example, a frontline worker managing a chronic condition needs different content than a remote employee beginning a physical activity challenge. Effective segmentation reduces message fatigue and increases relevance, which directly correlates with higher open rates, registration and program completion. Even organizations without large communication teams can effectively segment populations to ensure the right message reaches the right audience.
Leverage multiple channels to meet people where they are.
Employees consume information across different communication channels: email, mobile app, manager conversations, intranet posts and direct mail for non-desk workers. That’s why using only a single channel to communicate your well-being program will consistently miss segments of the workforce. It’s important to identify where different employee groups get their information and align communications accordingly. Mobile accessibility is especially important for deskless workers, who may be a hard population to reach through any other channel.
Embed well-being into your culture.
While programs drive engagement, they’re not the only factor. Leadership buy-in is also critical and functions as a multiplier that amplifies all other engagement drivers. When managers and executives visibly participate in and endorse the program, it signals that well-being is a cultural priority and helps to sustain participation beyond the launch period. In fact, 95% of employees report increased program awareness and experience improved well-being culture when leaders walk the talk of well-being. Moreover, when leaders actively support wellness initiatives, employees are more likely to feel cared for. And that matters to the bottom line. Research conducted by WebMD Health Services finds that employees who feel their organization cares about their well-being report 56% higher engagement, 37% lower burnout and greater retention.
Support managers in championing employee well-being.
Managers play a critical role in fostering a culture of well-being, but they also need support to be effective in that role. Organizations should provide managers with training, practical resources and guidance on how to have supportive conversations, recognize signs of burnout and connect employees with available well-being resources. It is equally important to acknowledge that managers may be experiencing burnout themselves and ensure they have access to the same support and well-being resources as their teams. When managers are equipped, supported and encouraged to prioritize well-being for themselves and their employees, they are better positioned to create a healthy, engaged and resilient workplace culture.
Leverage rewards and incentives that motivate behavior change.
To sustain well-being program participation and encourage lasting behavior change, it’s important to offer incentives and reward employees for completion. Most organizations offer a wellness incentive program for participation at the start of the program—for example, health care premium reductions or a small monetary gift. But after launch, it’s important to align future incentives with the goals the organization has set to achieve in order to create genuine engagement. Below, we discuss four research-based incentives and rewards best practices: rewarding high-impact activities, communicating incentives effectively, using the right type of incentive and delivering rewards effectively.
Reward high-impact activities.
The greatest rewards should be weighted toward the actions most likely to change behavior long-term, such as platform registration, health assessment completion, one-on-one coaching and wellness challenge participation, versus rewarding simple activity completion on the platform. Wondering how much of a reward to offer? Research shows 70% of organizations offer incentive values between $100 and $500 per participant annually. It’s important for HR leaders to continuously audit current incentive levels against benchmarks and concentrate value on the behaviors that drive meaningful health outcomes.
Communicate incentives effectively.
As with other aspects of the well-being program, communicating incentives effectively is essential. Make sure employees understand the connection between their actions and the rewards they will receive with simple “Do X, get Y” messaging. Communicate incentives prior to launch and reinforce them throughout the program year using multiple channels, rather than simply mentioning them at enrollment time. Reminders about incentive status and completion deadlines are valuable messages for keeping individuals engaged.
Use the right type of incentive.
Avoid relying on a single, uniform reward. When possible, offer diverse and flexible incentives so employees can choose what motivates them. Be sure to frame incentives as gains (bonuses) rather than discounts. As we know, lasting behavior change requires intrinsic motivation, which develops when employees feel personally connected to their health goals. But extrinsic motivation, in the form of incentives, can offer that small nudge to participate in the program. Eventually that spurs intrinsic motivation when participants feel a sense of progress and experience increased social connection.
Deliver rewards effectively.
There’s nothing worse than getting excited about an incentive, completing the required action, then waiting months to receive the reward. So make sure to shorten the time between action and reward with digital delivery and automatic, easy fulfillment. This will help employees connect their actions with a positive outcome and strengthen overall perceptions of the well-being program.
Measure what actually matters beyond registration rates.
When it comes to employee engagement and wellness programs and how to measure success, it’s critical to look at more than just registration numbers. While registration and participation are important, they aren’t necessarily indicators of genuine engagement with a well-being program.
At WebMD Health Services, we believe that genuine employee engagement with a well-being program is characterized by intrinsic motivation paired with an emotional connection to improvement. It is this type of engagement that we can use to make a solid business case. In other words, engagement, measured well, is what connects well-being program spend to common ROI measures that resonate with CFOs and executive stakeholders—like reduced healthcare costs, increased productivity and retention. A good example of this is a change in population health risks which often translates to employees’ ability to be more productive on the job.
To effectively measure well-being program success, we suggest starting with participation metrics. Then, turn your attention to genuine engagement by gathering data on how frequently people interact, whether they’re achieving goals, whether they return to the program in different ways, and whether you see behavior or risk change and goal completion. Focus on outcome-based measurement: health assessment completion rates, health risk changes over time, participation in challenges and coaching sessions, biometric trend data and employee-reported well-being scores.
For more information on this topic, see our How To Drive Meaningful Engagement e-book.
Start with the highest-leverage change first.
If you’re not able to address all five drivers of well-being program engagement, don’t worry. Meaningful progress doesn’t require you to overhaul every aspect of the program at the same time. We advise choosing the highest-leverage, lowest-cost lever: improving communications through segmentation and multi-channel delivery. This can go a long way towards boosting registration and health assessment completion without a huge new budget. From there, layer in incentive recalibration and personalization, as your bandwidth allows, always making sure to leverage leadership buy-in as the connective tissue. This phased approach is a great way to build momentum and demonstrate early wins to stakeholders.
Take the next step with a proven engagement framework.
Now that you understand the five key drivers of meaningful program engagement—whole person program design, seamless user experience, reach and accessibility, organizational culture and reward design—and how to put them into action, we encourage you to take the next step. Many times, HR teams benefit from a partner who can not only support incentive design, communications, personalization and leadership integration as part of a cohesive program, but who can provide the consultative and strategic support that will work best for your organization.
With over 25 years of experience designing programs that apply this framework across diverse employer populations, WebMD Health Services can help. We bring the platform, the feedback tools, the benchmarking data and the guidance to make sustained engagement and measurement possible.
We invite you to explore our well-being solutions or request a demo.
