The Future Evolution of Workplace Wellness Programs
Workplace wellness programs are necessary to improve business performance and to make your workforce healthy. The future of wellness indicates a rapid evolution in the industry of workplace wellness, characterized by novel innovative solutions for handling health care costs. The companies will have to define their wellness strategy according to the need of the workforce for their well-being. However, the question is will the advances in the healthcare disciplines be leveraged cohesively optimally, and creatively to offer maximum benefit to both the employer and the employee?
With the growth of the industry, data, technology, and increased insight into what motivates employees to stay healthy are moulding the future of corporate wellness programs. Often observed sceptically as agenda-driven methods for employers to drive down their health care costs, a few fundamental trends will elevate wellness programs in the eyes of employees and, ultimately, make them further integrated into employees’ lives.
Here are three that are moulding the future of wellness programs.
MORE DATA INTEGRATED
Data integration will emerge as the biggest driver of wellness programs. Wearables, software platforms, as well as other data sources have the potential to distribute important insights that make a difference and are essential for the health of employees. Data-driven incentives will be the norm, based on employees’ personal preferences and locations. Data will update employees regarding incentives, for example, walk 8,000 steps a day and reduce your health insurance premium. Wearables will track certain aspects, while others will be driven by employee requirement.
ADDRESSING FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS
In recent years, wellness programs have started including some basic financial education in their offerings. But in near future wellness programs will go beyond lunch-and-learn and webinar sessions and will help you learn about how to save for college education or retirement. Companies will make use of the data available with them to tailor financial offerings according to the employee requirement. When employees experience financial issues or otherwise are in debt, stress can significantly reduce their efficiency and effectiveness at the workplace, increase absenteeism, and ultimately result in illness or poor health habits.
Companies with the help of their employee wellness program are expected to offer assistance with debt reduction, more individualized assistance in planning for retirement as well as health care costs in retirement, and otherwise, will help employees in achieving a sustainable financial future.
BUILDING LIFE EASIER AND FUN
With an ageing population, more employees are anticipated to care dully for both, their ageing parents as well as their children. Employers in such scenarios are expected to offer more help with the child as well as eldercare. Wellness programs for employees will be designed in such as way that it will address both mental and financial situation of the employees and by doing so in the long run, it will impact their medical costs as well as spending for years to come.
More Personalized
The more personalized health and wellness strategies will lead to more participation of employees in the wellness program. The companies will start utilizing the demographics data while designing wellness strategies. This will focus on customizing the nature of the program to fulfil the needs of the majority of the workforce.
Accessible from Remote
In the corporate sector, a good number of people work from a remote location. This number will increase sharply in the next 10 years. It is not suitable for such remote employees to travel and participate in wellness activities on a regular basis. This will let companies start taking help from technology such as health and fitness apps so all of the employees irrespective of the location, can participate in the wellness programs.
Related Article: Health and Well-Being for Remote Employees.
Employers are expected to introduce different tools like vacation savings accounts that will not only help employees save for their vacations but will also help them plan vacations by means of integrated social media components, these will help employees interact with fellow vacation planners.