Top 2018 Corporate Wellness Trends

It’s that time – we are all gearing up for the new year already, getting through the holiday madness and planning for Q1. With all the busyness of the holiday season, health and wellness program participation tends to have a little bit of a decline, which is why staying up with the trends to entice your participants to get off to a good start next year is so important. When managing a successful corporate health and wellness program, it’s necessary to take ABE approach (Always Be Evolving) and work with a health and wellness incentive provider that understands services you are offering to assist them, and the appropriate incentives needed to modify the behavior to lift program uptake over last year. ABE is key to participation because they continuously need your active interest in their influencing motivation! Key considerations need to be reviewed every year to keep your workplace wellness program on track. Listed below is a handful of the top corporate wellness trends to incorporate into your program for 2018.

This one’s a biggie. When presenting a more flexible work environment in exchange for program participation, you can bet that participants will be willing to engage. Offering teleworking or flex schedules are great options to start with. Both of these choices are proven to decrease stress, increase rest, increased productivity, and a decrease in work absence. Some may be wondering, so what does the company get out of this? Simple, increased productivity and employee retention -not a bad deal, right?

While rewarding for participation has been around for awhile, it was usually in the form of a disincentive or cash reward for participation. Most workplace wellness programs still lag behind supporting participants. Companies that have successfully transitioned, have partnered with an incentive company who utilize object based dynamic technology and have responsive mobile-first platforms to increase engagement using cloud-based microservices. If the right reward management provider is engaged, wellness programs can rid themselves of internal inefficiencies and reduce overall reward and payment issuance. Many companies have teleworkers/remote employees that do not have access to daily help from their managers and peers to understand their workplace wellness program, having a central reward management system available to them allows them to be connected to a wellness program 24/7. Managers can now minimize any program miscommunication, change messaging as needed. These user-friendly platforms have shown to increase engagement and lower internal costs. The right system is easy to administrate, has access to extensive reward offerings, and users can readily understand how to participate and redeem.  And most of all – they can engage where, when, how they want to. The key takes away here is choose the right reward management provider.

We all can’t have a work environment like Google where there’s endless table tennis, nap pods, massage therapy, etc., but offering a healthier work environment is an excellent way to boost morale and increase engagement. This could be something like bring your dog to work, walking meetings, standing desks, healthy snack options, and so on. Compile a list of options that will work for your program and give a small survey to participants to provide insight on what is desirable.

Wearables such as Fitbit and Garmin have significantly increased in popularity in the last two years. These fitness trackers are desirable rewards and are also a great way to track progress, maybe even hold a little challenge between the staff, a little friendly competition never hurt anybody. The trackers come in various shapes, sizes, and trendy colors making them adaptable for just about anybody!

Health and wellness programs should never target just physical health; it’s all about total health. Providing support for Mental Health, Financial Wellness, Stress Management is a huge plus for employees. At one point or another, we have all thought how great it would be to have help on any of the above class options. Offering support to an employee’s well being will drastically increase productivity and overall health.

Mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular in the western world, and it’s no wonder – promoting a mindful work environment helps reduce stress, anxiety, calm the body, and reduce symptoms of depression. This act of focusing on just “being” rather than just “doing” provides employees with ability to train the mind to understand how they are feeling without passing any  judgments. “A 2016 study found that employees who received a weekly two-hour training course on mindfulness over an eight-week period showed improvement in several different areas, including satisfaction of life and hope, along with reduced anxiety. Findings from this study also showed that these employees displayed higher levels of concentration on work, as well as improved interpersonal relationships.”

With New Year Resolutions just around the corner, it’s time to prepare and be on the lookout for the top trends for generating a high performing corporate health and wellness program. At All Digital Rewards our team of experts will design a strategy tailored to your employees, to not only boost health through engagement, but also lower company costs, all while keeping up with the trends. We want your shopping experience to be as simple as possible, to learn more about our health and wellness programs or marketplace technology give us a call at 866-415-7703 or click the “Schedule a Demo” button at the bottom of the page!