GiftCard Partners Blog

Employee wellness programs are a great way to create a culture of fitness while controlling healthcare costs. Employee wellness programs make employees healthier, more productive, and generally happier. It can be as simple as endorphins. For employers, wellness programs help build organizational culture, peer-to-peer relationships and a grateful, healthy staff. Here are three areas to focus on to help build your employee wellness program into your organization.

We have talked a lot about employee health and wellness programs on this blog in the past, but according to a recent
USA Today article, there is a new type of employee health program gaining popularity among employers. Employee financial health is a new priority for employers and it is having a real impact on employee productivity. The main premise for employee financial education is that if there is no financial stress in employees' lives, they can be at the peak of productivity. Three main goals for employee financial health initiatives are:

Wearable devices are becoming a growing trend in the fitness community and now for employers looking to track their corporate wellness programs. Wearable technology provides a unique opportunity for both employees and corporate wellness program administrators to track participants' progress in real time. Here are a few ways incorporating these "wearables" into your corporate wellness programs can boost its effectiveness.

The Affordable Care Act, sound familiar? While we haven't talked about it on our blog lately, it doesn't mean its effects aren't still causing changes across the country. More and more organizations are jumping on the wellness program bandwagon as the ACA has made it even more compelling. These wellness programs can range in their complexity while one struggle is felt across them all, how to increase both participation and engagement. In the recent article,
Wellness Incentives Encourage Participation and Engagement, the 
OH&S explains that the struggle with participation and  engagement is due to factors like poor program design, unattainable objectives, poor communications, and the big one, proper incentives are not being used.
The right kind of motivation. The article goes on to explain the difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation would entail an employee doing something because they enjoy the process and tasks, they want to participate or are driven to engage, while extrinsic motivation requires a little more, like inspirational leadership, compelling communication, team support and yes,
tangible incentives. While many employers hope intrinsic motivation will be enough, in most situations people need extrinsic motivation to both start and keep going until intrinsic motivation kicks in.
Touching on tangible. Tangible incentives can include merchandise items, gift cards and cash, and can be used for a variety of reasons, in many different ways, and for varying amounts. The important thing is to identify what tangible incentives match best with your particular wellness program and to look for incentives that will leave a lasting impression on your employees. For example, while using cash as rewards and incentives may have been an obvious go-to in the past, when receiving electronic paychecks many times the value of the reward is lost and and holds no long-term effect. The turn to more
tangible or memorable incentives, like gift cards, have become more popular in the recent years. Learn more about the use of tangible incentives in wellness programs
here.