Council Post: How To Incentivize Employees To Take Maximum Advantage Of Workplace Benefits

Sammy is the Founder and CEO of YuLife, the lifestyle insurance company providing life insurance, wellbeing, and rewards in one simple app.

For many executives and HR managers, how to maximize employees’ engagement with workplace well-being initiatives is a million-dollar question. Or, more precisely, it’s an $11 billion question, since that’s the projected size of next year’s total corporate employee engagement budget.

Let’s take a popular example to help understand the dilemma HR leaders face. Many big companies offer employees complementary gym memberships. On the face of it, that’s a nice benefit for employees to have, and the companies can claim that by effectively subsidizing employees’ fitness drives, they’re acting responsibly and looking after employees’ well-being.

But the fact that gym memberships are offered on paper, alongside a whole host of other perks and benefits designed to boost well-being, doesn’t mean that employees are taking full advantage of them. For instance, employers are increasingly offering access to remote therapists and counselors to boost employees’ mental health — especially amid the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet if employees aren’t actually taking up these offers to consult with mental health experts, the overall impact on employees’ well-being is minimal.

In order to equip employees with well-being services that offer ongoing value, employers should realize that providing a wide range of attractive perks is only part of the process. Truly successful well-being programs incentivize employees to take advantage of what’s on offer, making participation in these initiatives significantly more rewarding.

Use the Fogg Behavior Model to motivate change.

When we talk about boosting people’s well-being, what we really mean is inducing a change in their behavioral habits. An employer granting employees a free gym membership only makes a difference to their well-being if they didn’t previously go to the gym but have been persuaded to don their trainers and sweatbands as a result of their boss’s generous offer. If a seasoned gym-goer carries on working out as before, but now on the company credit card, they’re neither changing their habits or enhancing their well-being. But they are costing their employers a hefty monthly sum.

I look at behavioral change through the BJ Fogg Behavior Model. Fogg’s model identifies three necessary conditions that must intertwine in order for an individual to change their habits. Firstly, people must feel the motivation to perform the given task; secondly, they must have the ability to complete the task in a straightforward manner; and thirdly, there must be a specific trigger prompting them to do it.

It’s true that a company offering staff members subsidized gym memberships does constitute a trigger or a call to action, but Fogg’s model dictates that the trigger alone isn’t enough. Most people don’t consider starting a gym routine from scratch to be simple or straightforward. Since the all-important ability box on the Fogg checklist isn’t being met, the chances that people will use their new gym membership are vastly reduced. Leaving a gym entry pass on a new recruit’s desk won’t be a trigger that transforms that person into an exercise buff in one fell swoop.

Incentivizing behavioral change is the true game changer.

Let’s face it. Committing to a wellness routine is hard. With no shortage of work and family commitments, even finding 10 minutes to meditate before bed to reduce stress and enhance the quality of sleep can feel difficult to incorporate into our daily routines.

Yet once well-being activities are broken down into small, simple components with tangible rewards for completing them, our ability to carry them out and our motivation to keep going can rise significantly. Adding those two elements of Fogg’s three-pronged model to the employer’s trigger makes all the difference to our chances of maintaining the routine in the long-term.

There are several different techniques through which employers can incentivize wellness activities. I’m a particular fan of gamification, the application of gaming principles in other walks of life. Once people feel that enhancing their well-being is like playing a game, with rewards for “leveling up” and developing new skills, they feel a sense of control and creativity, and their motivation to continue rises. Opt-in internal workplace competitions to top leaderboards for step counts or meditation minutes are great fun and bolster team camaraderie. Bonuses like vouchers, discounts or even donating to charity also drive up participation.

What happens when employees respond to these incentives?

Employee engagement programs should be a win-win for both employers and employees. Employers shouldn’t be plowing vast outlays into employee wellness just to keep up with their competitors; if their programs are effective, they will be rewarded with healthier, happier and more productive teams. Employees, meanwhile, can only benefit from initiatives tailored to what they want and need and what rewards them for positive behavioral change.

Demonstrating care for employees offers clear value for businesses. My company has found that 87% of U.K. office workers say that they are more likely to stay with an employer who looks after their well-being. By providing accessible and incentive-based tools to enable employees to do just that, businesses are simultaneously increasing employee loyalty and mitigating the detrimental impacts of burnout and employee churn.

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