Are you Focusing on the Right Metrics to Evaluate your Wellness Program?

Everyone is well aware of the effect poor health can have on the productivity of a business. Issues like presentism, absenteeism, employee turnover rate, burnout, etc. have immense consequences on the healthy functioning of a business.

Organizations that implement wellness programs are more sought after by employees with higher recommendations. Companies that invest in the wellbeing of their employees head out on the way to increased productivity and better employee engagement. However, this doesn’t happen always. No Employee wellness programs can reap the rewards expected without continual monitoring, improvisation, and essential individualization. More often than not, and according to numerous statistics, the deemed positive impacts do not translate into the required benefits for the employees. What makes it so? These kinds of results pose questions regarding the wellness strategies of the company, whether they are planned the right way, keeping in mind the needs of the employees.

The right kind of wellness program will be able to

• Justify its existence.
• Achieve the results as deemed.
• Feasible in terms of the resources spent.
• Focus on the actual needs of the employees.

In any aspect of a business, when using measure metrics to gauge performance, it is imperative to focus on the how as well along with the what. Leading and lagging indicators are performance management tools, often in use.

Lagging indicators

These are output-oriented indicators, easy to measure, but hard to influence. For ex., in case of weight loss, you step on a scale and get your weight.

Leading indicators

These are input-oriented indicators, difficult to measure but easy to influence. For ex., in case of weight loss, calories taken in and burned are leading indicators. How many calories you take in, how many you burn a day, these factors are easy to influence but difficult to measure.

Now let’s look at what it entails in a business. Outcomes like profit, costs, etc. are lagging indicators. The output is easy to measure, but what leads to this desired outcome?

Attributes like loyalty, job commitment, morale, engagement, etc. are leading indicators, hard to measure, but influencing the lagging indicators.

It’s a little hard to measure the full impact of a wellness program owing to a lot of reasons, no matter the stage. There are a lot of factors, at play, when it comes to a person’s health, forex. his genetics, family history, immediate environment, socioeconomic status, etc. However, this certainly doesn’t imply that measuring the impact isn’t possible, or worse there isn’t any impact at all.

Create the right metrics to calculate the ROI of your wellness programs

A clear vision

Have a clear vision of what you seek to accomplish with your wellness program. Most organizations seek output like reduced healthcare costs, increased employee productivity, and reduced employee health care risks. Why is your organization implementing the wellness program? What is it aspiring to achieve? Defining your why with a clear vision is the most significant step, setting an anchoring point for you.

Choose your metrics

Once you have a clear vision, the next step would be to choose the metrics you would want to track based on the preferences of your wellness program. For ex., if your goal is employee retention, then you need to focus on what’s driving retention. Also, what will entice employees the most to reach this goal? Do they seek some sort of benefits or compensation? Or is it the job satisfaction or flexible work hours they want? Your focus should shift accordingly.

Analyze the data

It is imperative to analyze the data in terms of operational intricacies and the outcomes. When it comes to analyzing the performance (leading indicators) of your wellness program, the following questions can be asked

• How many employees are participating in the activity?
• What are they engaging in most?

Questions that can be asked while analyzing outcomes (lagging indicators) of your wellness program

• Did Employees engage in the program, and were they the people requiring it the most?
• Did they register any changes in their health status?
• Did participants generate fewer healthcare claims than non-participants?
• Did spouses have any impact on these wellness programs?

At Truworth Wellness, we boast of a comprehensive operational system to make your wellness programs successful with our team of wellness experts.