Last week, Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) released a study that found more employers (73%) are using financial incentives to drive participation in their employee health and wellness programs.

Incentives spending per employee is up again, according to the study.  Employers spent $460 per employee, on average, in 2011 (vs. $430 in 2011 and $260 in 2009). And about half of the employers surveyed are extending those incentives to their employees’ dependents, spending $420 on average.  The study also found most employers are utilizing a combination of various incentives to drive participation in a range of employee health offerings (cash, gift cards and HSA contributions, for example).

The majority of employers surveyed (57%) agreed that incentives-based programs had a better than expected success rate at increasing employee participation. Yet, interestingly, the study also found the majority of employers (76%) don’t know the return on their investments in health-improvement programs.

This finding, along with one from a Buck Consultants survey that found just 37% of U.S. respondents had even measured specific outcomes from their employee health programs, and another from a Forrester Research survey that found, depending on the program in question, 63-86% of employees aren’t aware of the programs their employers offer, underscores some key issues employers face with employee health investments. It’s clear that, even though employers are increasingly seeing the value of and investing in employee health and wellness initiatives, significant challenges persist.  Namely, how to drive higher awareness, consideration and adoption of existing employee health and wellness programs; and, how to more easily and accurately measure the impact of these programs on employees’ health and productivity.

Here at Virgin HealthMiles, we’ve been helping organizations address these challenges by providing them with a streamlined way to integrate and promote their various employee health and incentives programs with our Integrated Incentives solution. We’re also helping them get immediate information on progress and the impact these programs are having on their employees’ health with our real-time reporting capabilities.

Learn more about these capabilities at our Integrated Incentives Resource Center.  Here you’ll find links to datasheets, white papers, surveys and webinars that will help you learn more about on how an integrated approach can drive more impact and better results from your employee health and wellness investments.

A recent survey from Aon Hewitt, along with the National Business Group on Health and The Futures Company, revealed that employees want their employers to do more to help them improve their health.

Three-thousand employees (and dependents) who get their health insurance through their employer responded to questions about health and wellness. Most are concerned about the cost of health care, now and in the future. Most understand the value of health and wellness programs when it comes to keeping costs down and improving their health. But most feel that their employers could be doing a better job at designing these programs to better suit their needs and goals.

Some key findings:

• Employees want better tools to help them make health decisions, ones that are tailored to their specific situation. Half of respondents want a personalized plan with recommendations for specific actions they can take to improve their health. This request is up 9% in just one year.

• Employees want easy, one-stop access to health and wellness information, with many specifically requesting a single health and wellness portal with personalized health tips and reminders.

• Money talks. Sixty percent of respondents said that they’re more likely to participate in wellness programs if they can earn rewards; 58% would be more encouraged to complete their HRAs if rewards were included; and 50% said that rewards would motivate them to participate in disease management programs.

• Despite myriad offerings, many employees seem to be unaware of what programs and incentives are available to them. More than a third (36%) of employees did not participate in even one program on offer by their employer.

• And perhaps most telling, 60% of respondents believe that their employers are only “moderately-to-not supportive” when it comes to their efforts to get healthier.

That last one’s kind of a kick in the gut, isn’t it? You are supportive. You do care. You care because it’s in their best interests to be healthy, and you care because it’s in your organization’s best interest for them to be healthy.  So where’s the disconnect? Much of it may have to do with the previous point, the one about awareness. You could be giving them exactly what they want, exactly the kinds of personalized programs that not only will help them improve their health, but show them how much you do, in fact, support their efforts to get healthy. But if they don’t know about them? Your efforts aren’t going to drive the impact you’re seeking.

Which brings us back to bullet point number two:  the desire for easy, one-stop access to health and wellness information.  A single location, one easy place, for your employees to learn about everything you offer and all the incentives they can earn will dramatically improve awareness.  An integrated approach means they won’t have to seek out the information, they won’t be confused, and they won’t be overwhelmed (which often leads them to just give up). Not only that, employees will see your various programs as a comprehensive whole; an overall, cohesive offering designed to help them improve their health.  And when you want to change or replace programs as your strategy evolves, employees will go to that one consistent, familiar place to learn about them.

To learn more about how an integrated approach can help you drive greater awareness and engagement in all the programs you offer, visit our Integrated Incentives Resource Center.

It’s no secret that employers are under pressure to control rising health benefit costs.  Yesterday, Mercer released its National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans.  Findings show employers are fast-tracking their efforts.  And they’re turning to employee health programs as the top long-term strategy to control costs.

More than 87% of large employers plan to add or enhance their health promotion efforts and programs.  What’s more, they’re investing in more compelling employee health incentives.

“Five years ago, the most common incentive offered by large employers for completing a health assessment was either a token gift or cash; this year it is a lower premium contribution from the employee (the median reduction in the annual contribution required for employee-only coverage is $240).”

You can see more of the survey’s findings here.  And for more information on how you can use incentives to drive healthy behaviors across your workforce, check out our Integrated Incentives Resource Center.  Whether you’re just getting started with employee health incentives or you have a robust strategy in place, here you’ll find links to datasheets, white papers, case studies, and webinars that’ll help you learn how to get more from your employee health incentives programs and better measure their impact.

Company Builds Upon Existing Social Functionality, Releases First-of-its-Kind Social Platform That Gets Employees to ‘Spread the Health’ Across Organization’s Various Health and Wellness Programs

New Functionality Helps Employers Keep it Simple with Single Program Appealing to All Fitness Levels

Poor health spreads like wildfire. And it not only impacts the lives of employees, it impacts business profitability. Virgin HealthMiles, a pioneer in leveraging individuals’ social connections to create and sustain a workplace culture of health, thinks it’s time to turn the tides and start spreading some good health. Today, the company announced its Fall ’11 product release, designed to help employers drive greater impact of their employee health and wellness programs through higher employee engagement and better incentives management.

As part of its Fall ’11 release, Virgin HealthMiles builds upon its industry leading capabilities and introduces Connections – a breakthrough solution that provides employers with one social platform for all their health and wellness programs.  With Connections, employers leverage peer-to-peer motivation and support to drive engagement and better health across their multitude of wellness offerings. Connections offers employers a secure forum where their employees can ‘spread the health’ – a way for them to build support networks and recognize each other’s accomplishments as they strive for healthier lifestyles.

The company also introduced new activity tracking capabilities that engage even more of an employer’s workforce, helping organizations keep things simple with one easy program that fits all fitness levels.  Virgin HealthMiles also introduced enhanced Integrated Incentives,  which helps organizations more easily integrate third-party programs and data, and simplify promotion and management of multiple programs and incentives.

“At Virgin HealthMiles, getting healthy has always been social.  With Fall ‘11, we’re building upon our proven ability to engage employees in sustained, healthy behaviors and we’re helping employers for the first time create a social community that will encompass all the health promotion programs they have in place,” said Tom Abshire, senior vice president of marketing and member engagement for Virgin HealthMiles. “Fall ’11 not only helps employers drive greater awareness and participation in their health and wellness programs, it helps them create a cohesive, reinforcing employee experience across various programs and drives greater impact from all their offerings.”

Key Benefits of the Fall ’11 Release: Social Connections, Improved Activity Tracking, Easier Third-Party Program and Data Integration

• Spread the Health with Connections:  It’s a private, members-only social health community where employees build support networks; post updates to share goals and accomplishments; and create groups around common interests and healthy activities.  Connections will generate a healthy buzz around the office. Plus, employers can use Connections to add social networking to and drive higher awareness and participation in all of their health and wellness programs. For example, employers can use Connections to create a support group for employees participating in their smoking cessation program, or to let their health coaches provide one-to-many coaching outside of the classroom or coaching call, and more.

• More ways to track activity means more employees participate:  Simple walking programs may fit the needs of some employees, but what about those who are highly active?  Fall ’11 helps employers keep it simple with one program that meets the needs of all fitness levels.  With the new Fall ’11 features, employees earn “Active Minutes” – a way for them to get credit for more vigorous workouts.  Whether employees prefer to walk for 30 minutes per day, run for 15 or do something else, with “Active Minutes” they can all use the same, simple tools and earn rewards for the activities they like to do.

• A Better Way to Promote Your Programs and Easier, Less Costly Data Integration:  Building upon Virgin HealthMiles’ market-leading Integrated Incentives solution, it’s now even easier for employers to integrate data from third-party partners, add or replace programs based on changing business needs, and increase employee awareness of all their available programs and incentives opportunities.

Connections, new activity tracking, and enhanced Integrated Incentives are now available to current and prospective HealthMiles clients.  For more information, visit: http://us.virginhealthmiles.com/resources/Pages/Fall11_WhatsNew.aspx.

Last week, Ed Dougherty, Vice President of Client and Member Services at Virgin HealthMiles, hosted the second of Virgin HealthMiles’ 4-part Hot Days, Cool Info Summer Webinar Series: How to Maximize the Impact of Your Employee Health Incentive Strategy.

In this webinar, Ed shared critical factors you should consider when developing an employee health incentive strategy so you can maximize its impact for your organization.  He also shared best practices and real life examples from employers of how to develop and execute a successful incentives-based strategy.

Missed the webinar?  Download a complete recordingand learn more about how to maximize the impact of your employee health incentive strategy.  If we didn’t get to your questions during the webinar, post a comment and we’ll answer them here on The Uprising.

And be sure to mark your calendars and registerfor the last two events in our Summer Webinar Series.   

August 18^th, 2PM ET / 11AM PT
Engagement Tips to Improve Program Participation
Presented by Ed Dougherty, Vice President, Client and Member Services, Virgin HealthMiles

August 25^th, 2PM ET / 11AM PT
Why Physical Activity is the Heart of Disease Prevention
Presented by Jennifer Turgiss, Vice President, Health Management, Virgin HealthMiles

If you missed it, check out a recap and download the recording of the series’ first webinar: How to Finance Your Employee Health and Wellness Programs, presented by Tom Abshire, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Member Engagement, Virgin HealthMiles.

Every day, more and more companies are betting on the power of incentives-based prevention programs to improve workforce health and bend the healthcare cost curve.  Yet, measuring and managing the impact of multiple employee health programs and incentives creates new challenges for HR managers. Tough challenges like making sure the majority of your workforce knows about the programs you offer and finding easy, effective ways to measure the impact of your employee health promotion efforts.

Here at Virgin HealthMiles, we thought… there’s got to be a better, easier way to help HR managers address these challenges. So, we’ve been hard at work creating solutions to help you do just that.  And today I’m excited to announce our Summer ’11 product release.  

Virgin HealthMiles Summer ’11 delivers a range of new capabilities to help you address these two key issues: 

• how to drive higher awareness, consideration and adoption of your existing employee health and wellness programs;
• and, how to more easily and accurately measure the impact of programs on your employees’ health and productivity. 

Here’s a glance at what’s new in Summer ’11:

• Integrated Incentives. This first-of-its-kind incentives platform leverages SaaS-based technology to help you promote and incent all of your wellness programs in one place, streamline employee communications, and drive higher employee engagement and better results from your health and wellness strategy. 
• New real-time reporting functionality. Real-time reports provide you with up-to-date and easy to access information to accurately evaluate individual program performance and overall health improvements, as well as target areas for improvement and future investment.
• International solutions.  If you’re a U.S.-based employer, you can now offer our award-winning HealthMiles program to your employees in other regions around the world, expanding the health and productivity benefits that Virgin HealthMiles provides.

Learn more about these capabilities at our Summer ’11 Resource Center.  Here you’ll find links to datasheets, white papers, surveys and webinars that will help you learn more about the value of Integrated Incentives, plus more on new features now available.  Feel free to bookmark this page and use it as a guide over time.

More and more, organizations are realizing the power of incentives to drive healthy employee behaviors. We recently conducted a survey and found 70 percent of employers now offer incentives to employees to participate in wellness initiatives. This growing trend of incentives-based wellness solutions – and the very real impact innovative programs have on lowering rising healthcare costs – was spotlighted today in a segment on the CBS Early Show. The Early Show story profiled Virgin HealthMiles’ customer, the PHH Corporation, and the success the company is having in applying incentives to help curb rising healthcare costs and create a more engaged workforce.

In the Early Show segment, PHH shares some of the benefits of its Virgin HealthMiles incentives-based wellness program, which the company describes as a “win-win” for both employees and the corporation. PHH reports having fewer medical claims, less employee sick time, higher employee productivity and more engaged employees as they take control of their wellness as a result of the Virgin HealthMiles program.

Healthcare costs are rising, but employers are proactively working to curb costs and create healthier workforces – and employees are getting onboard.

We recently conducted a survey of employers and employees across the country and released it to mark June’s National Employee Wellness Month. Survey findings showed that while 76 percent of American businesses report healthcare cost increases (some of as much as 10 percent year-over-year), nearly 90 percent of employers are now relying on employee health and wellness programs to lower costs. Seventy percent of employers now offer incentives to employees to participate in wellness initiatives. The approach is working: nearly 88 percent of employees said incentives were an extremely or somewhat important contributor to long-term participation in wellness programs.

Additionally, social networks are creating organizational cultures of good health. Forty-four percent of employers said leveraging an individual’s social connections with its workplace wellness programs has increased employee engagement. Almost 60 percent of employees said community and social elements of wellness programs were either “extremely” or “very” important in staying committed to good health.

“Employers and employees recognize they play a role in bending the healthcare cost curve – and it must start with prevention,” said Chris Boyce, CEO of Virgin HealthMiles. “More companies are implementing prevention-based wellness initiatives and using tools such as incentives and social connections to drive long-term participation and healthy behavior change. The value of these strategies is powerful, and our survey results show they create healthier workforces.”

Check out the key results and full survey findings.

Part 4: Create a great employee experience.  

Hello, again! Last week, I shared my second of three best practices when it comes to designing an effective integrated incentives program for employee health and wellness: offering incentives that are relevant and of value to your employees. Today, I’ll discuss the third best practice, which encourages you to create a great employee experience. What makes a great experience? Consider the following:   (more…)

Part 3: Make your Incentives Relevant and Valuable to Employees

Welcome back. Last week, I shared my first of three best practices when it comes to designing an effective integrated incentives program for employee health and wellness: determining the right structure for your incentives-based programs.  Today, I’ll discuss the second best practice, which asks you to consider not just how much you’re offering, but what you’re offering.  Make sure the incentives you offer are relevant and are of value to your employees.  Carefully consider these important factors: (more…)