How Incentives Strengthen Employee Wellness and Benefits Engagement

Employee wellness incentives are rewards employers offer to encourage employees to complete specific health, benefits, or wellness activities. Effective incentives connect a meaningful reward to a clear, achievable action, such as completing benefits enrollment, attending a wellness education session, receiving a preventive screening, or participating in a wellness challenge.

Thoughtfully designed incentives can provide extra encouragement to complete a specific, achievable action. They can also demonstrate that an organization values employee wellbeing and recognizes the effort employees put into participating in wellness programs.

The key is to connect the right reward to the right behavior.

Why Benefits and Wellness Engagement Matter

Health benefits represent a significant investment for employers and employees. The average annual premium for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $26,993 in 2025, with employees contributing an average of $6,850. KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey also found that family premiums had increased 26% over five years.

Yet employees do not always spend much time evaluating or using the benefits available to them. A 2024 Voya Financial survey found that nearly half of American workers spent less than 20 minutes reviewing their benefit choices during open enrollment. Reuters also reported that only 3% of workers surveyed fully understood the benefits of a health savings account.

Incentives can help employers draw attention to important actions, such as:

• Completing benefits enrollment
• Participating in a health assessment
• Scheduling a preventive screening
• Receiving a seasonal vaccination
• Completing a wellness challenge
• Attending a benefits education session
• Reaching a defined activity milestone

An incentive should not replace clear communication or an accessible program. Instead, it should give employees a timely, meaningful reason to take the next step.

Employers should also distinguish between incentives for participation and incentives tied to particular health outcomes. Rewarding an employee for completing an eligible activity, for example, can involve different program considerations than rewarding someone for achieving a specific health result. Defining the qualifying action clearly is an important first step in designing an appropriate incentive program.

Wellness Incentives Can Reinforce Employee Recognition

Wellness incentives can serve two related purposes: encouraging health-related actions and recognizing employee participation.

That recognition can matter. A longitudinal Gallup and Workhuman study following more than 3,400 employees from 2022 through 2024 found that employees who received high-quality recognition were 45% less likely to leave their organizations.

That finding does not mean wellness incentives themselves reduce turnover by 45%. Rather, it highlights a broader principle employers can apply to wellness programs: timely, meaningful recognition can contribute to an employee experience in which participation and effort are acknowledged.

A gift card cannot compensate for an unhealthy workplace or inadequate benefits. However, when incentives are part of a broader culture of support and recognition, they can help reinforce the message that employee participation and progress are valued.

How Can Employers Increase Employee Health Engagement?

Employers can increase employee health engagement by making wellness activities easy to understand and complete, communicating their value clearly, removing participation barriers, and using timely incentives to encourage specific actions. Incentives work best as part of an accessible wellness program rather than as a substitute for clear communication or meaningful benefits.

Make the Reward Fit the Wellness Campaign

Different health and wellness initiatives call for different reward experiences. Two options available through the Engage2Reward™ Gift Card Ordering Platform allow organizations to match the reward approach to the purpose of the campaign.

A simple way to think about the choice is this: The BrandedChoice™ Rewards Program can be a strong fit when employee choice, organizational branding, and the overall reward experience matter. A CVS^® Gift Card can be a strong fit when the reward itself should reinforce a health-and-wellness theme.

Create a Branded Wellness Experience

The BrandedChoice Rewards Program allows organizations to create a reward journey that carries their branding from notification through redemption. Employers can customize the email, messaging, imagery, and reward marketplace while giving employees a curated selection of gift card brands.

For a wellness campaign, the custom Choice Card™ messaging and available redemption catalog could be designed around relevant categories such as fitness, pharmacy, healthy dining, relaxation, recreation, personal care, or everyday needs. Employees still receive meaningful choice, while the overall experience reinforces the organization’s wellness message.

The BrandedChoice Rewards Program can be especially effective for multi-step campaigns, benefits enrollment initiatives, annual wellness challenges, employee appreciation, and programs in which organizations want recognition to feel like an extension of their employee experience.

Connect the Reward Directly to Health and Wellness

When the reward itself should reinforce the campaign’s health-and-wellness theme, the CVS^® gift card portfolio offers a familiar option connected to health and everyday wellbeing.

A CVS Gift Card gives recipients flexibility across a broad selection of merchandise available at 7,000+ CVS locations, as well as Longs Drugs^® and Navarro Discount Pharmacy^® locations, nationwide.

The CVS Select^® Gift Card provides a more health-focused option by limiting purchases to eligible products while excluding items such as alcohol, lottery tickets, other gift cards, and MinuteClinic services.

These options can complement campaigns focused on preventive health, healthy routines, benefits participation, or wellness milestones. Program managers can select the CVS product that best matches the campaign’s objectives and eligibility requirements.

Keep Incentives Timely, Clear, and Easy to Manage

Effective programs begin by defining the desired action before selecting the reward. Employees should understand what they need to do, when they need to do it, whether they are eligible, and how and when they will receive their incentive.

Timing matters, too. Delivering a reward soon after an employee completes the qualifying action helps maintain a clear connection between participation and recognition.

Through the Engage2Reward Platform, organizations can place bulk orders, deliver digital or physical rewards, personalize messages, establish budgets and approvals, and access reporting from one centralized platform. That can make it easier for program managers to administer incentives while providing employees with a straightforward reward experience.

Before building your next campaign, test your knowledge of the principles behind effective employee wellness incentives. Take the quiz below.