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Is there a recommended attitude or— better yet—a philosophy behind offering an incentive campaign?

That’s a great question and I believe there is. Personally, I believe a wellness program should encourage and reward healthy behavior adherence in busy adult lives in an ongoing fashion. In my mind, a good incentive program should create doable, meaningful programs that really reach out and attract busy workers in small but significant ways.

And that, to me, is the success that drives all of these other components of a typical wellness program—we’ve got to find ways to make health programs fit into people’s lives and small activities are a good beginning. As people start making small changes, we can encourage more significant changes. The incentives are there to give them a nudge and some added motivation to take action.

In your experience what’s the ultimate goal of a worksite incentive campaign?

Well, from my perspective, it’s all about empowering an entire group to do the same thing at the same time. For example, let’s say the program is focused on walking. An incentive campaign can streamline your efforts and help you encourage everyone to take part in the same activity at the same time. This is really important for wellness practitioners who have a lot on their plates. An incentive campaign can get employees excited, and at the same time, make life easier for wellness practitioners.

From a logistical perspective, what’s the right length of time to offer an incentive campaign? Should it be a year? Six months? Eight weeks?

Great question. I think incentive campaigns should be ongoing—by that I mean, I really believe you should have a program going all the time. After all, good health requires daily attention. The problem with this reality is that people can get bored if the programs are too long or if the incentives are offered too far in the future. People need to be kept engaged and they need to have an incentive that has a realistic timeframe. So what we’ve done at Integrated Health and Wellness is to create a series of fun and useful programs that are offered six times per year and are approximately four weeks in length—in between the programs themselves we have a month of marketing and registration.

So, in essence, we’ll start let’s say in January with marketing and registration for our February program. Then we’ll deliver the February program and we’ll start the communications campaign and registration process for the next program in March. This process repeats itself during the course of the year—so each year we spend six months on recruitment and registration and six months on programming. In doing it this way, it ensures that people have something new all the time. And with four week programs, we know that they are just long enough to establish some pretty positive health behaviors but not so long that people grow weary of the same thing day in and day out.

Is it a lot of work to offer six programs a year?

No, not really. Again, here’s how we split the year up into six, two-month cycles. To get started, we use the first month as the marketing month—and the month following as the programming month. So if we drill down a bit, here’s how the whole thing works. To initiate the process, we send a professionally produced “invitation to participate” to all eligible members—and we send the invitation via hard copy directly to their homes. This way we know that employees are guaranteed of receiving the invitation.

The actual invitation that’s sent is a 24" x 6" piece that’s trifolded onto itself. In essence, it looks like a postcard when it shows up. At first glance, people look at the invitation and come to the conclusion that it’s worth reading. When an individual opens the invitation, it folds out into a sidewalk of information asking them to take part. Again, the message is very clear, and the invitations are written using either a 13 or 14 point font. This invitation protocol has worked very well for getting people involved. By the way, in addition to the home mailer, we also send everyone invitations and reminders via email. This is an important step and increases participation significantly.

Finally, when it comes to closing the deal, we follow up with those that haven’t registered; we send one last email at the end of the marketing month to give them one last chance. After the marketing month is completed, it’s time to start the programs. Specifically, the actual programs are chosen depending on the needs of the workforce—but they’re all four weeks in length. In general, though, the programs can be anything from a four-week fitness challenge to one promoting the benefits of laughter. The four-week interval is crucial in keeping the programs interesting and exciting. In fact, the way we’ve set it up ensures that the programs don’t overload the wellness participants with too much “stuff.” Again, this point is critical. Sometimes, we overestimated what people are ready to take on. I’ve seen various programs that, to me, are maybe too long or too much and they die public and painful deaths.

Practitioners would be wise to start small. And, what we’ve found is that a month—a good four weeks—is plenty of time for an individual to either continue to maintain a good health behavior or improve and adopt one that they may not have already had.

You mentioned that a variety of programs should be offered? Can you give me an example of what the range can be?

Sure. I believe you’ve got to address the things that matter most—and those core programs will be pretty much the same from worksite to worksite. These include physical activity, proper nutrition, preventive screening, and making smart daily health decisions. This should be the core of any annual campaign.

Then on top of these things, you should consider offering programs like better dental health, recognizing the signs of skin cancer, getting enough sleep, being prepared for emergencies and disasters, etc., etc. The list is virtually endless. Again, the key is to concentrate on the basics and then sprinkle in other programs that address important behaviors of concern.

How important is communication in the incentive campaign process?

It’s the lynchpin. To keep people informed and to reinforce good health, people need regular and constant communication. Let me give you an example. During a programming month, participants will receive an email-a-day as part of the incentive campaign. So you can see it’s a constant and unrelenting method of communication. Some people will try to make the argument that an email-a-day is overkill. I disagree. I believe the key to getting people to read your emails is to make sure they are engaging, simple, easy, and fun. When you combine these things with an incentive and the peer support from the entire group who is going through the program, you’ve got a powerful process in motion. As an aside, it’s been my experience that most practitioners tremendously underestimate the importance of the communication process. Bottom line: it’s the key part of the whole thing.

In an online environment, do you find that employees struggle with embracing the technology associated with the incentive campaign?

Good question. I wouldn’t say they struggle—but there’s a definite learning curve. The key is to get employees into the process and then support them as they are learning how to navigate their way through the program online. You’ll get some negative feedback from a few people, but the key is to understand that they are not angry—they are learning. Sometimes, the two are tough to distinguish between. After a couple of weeks, everybody pretty much understands how the process works and then you are off to the races. But definitely expect some feedback early—especially if you’ve never done an incentive campaign before.

Let’s talk about the dollar value of the incentives. How much of an actual incentive is enough to get people to take part and stay engaged?

The way we calculate the optimal range is on a per employee/ per-month basis. For our program, the optimal level has been calculated to be about $5 per participant per program. So if there are six programs per year, you could do it comfortably for about $30 per participant per year. The way we manage our incentive program is to make sure that everyone that registers gets something—maybe it’s a pedometer, a t-shirt, a water bottle, etc. Then, for those that complete the program itself, we’ll enter them into a drawing for a larger prize. For example, we’re running a “Brighten Your Smile” program right now and for those that complete the program, we’ll enter them into a drawing for Visa gift cards or merchandise like Sonicare Toothbrushes. This incentive formula is a good one because it offers everyone something up front and then the chance to win a bigger prize at the end. This approach has worked very well for us.

So if you do a good job communicating your programs and, assuming they are fun and offer incentives, what kinds of participation rates can you expect?

In my experience, you can expect anywhere from 25% to 60% routinely. This is pretty much a no-brainer. Some companies have gotten in the neighborhood of 85% using the programs I talked about earlier. But, 25% at the low end to 60% at the high end is generally what you can expect.

Are those acceptable?

Yeah, I think so. Right now, the best ongoing programs in the country get 50% to 60% participation—so if you can keep your rates in this ballpark, you are doing pretty well. Obviously, we like to see 100% participation—and I think as the culture shifts towards wellness we’ll continue towards that—but right now 50% is pretty darn good.

In your experience, will people try to “game the system” when it comes to incentive campaigns? I guess what I’m asking here is “how many people will flat out lie?”

You know the way I look at it is liars need to exercise and eat right too. Yes, you would hope that people don’t lie and falsify information, but it happens. What I recommend to practitioners is that they simply work into their wellness programs a few lines that state something to the effect that any falsification of information provided to the wellness program will be subject to employee discipline—just as if you were to lie about anything else at your place of employment. But knowing that some people will lie, it makes choosing an incentive all the more important. For example, if at the end of the program you get $100 cash, if someone lies about their participation they can walk away with some serious money. On the other hand, if someone lies and they get a month free at a local gym, they still might do what you want them to do. So you can see that choosing the incentive is critical to avoid the gaming phenomenon. Bottom line: some people will lie—expect it and don’t be surprised by it when it happens.

I have one last question for you. What advice would you give a worksite wellness practitioner about doing an incentive campaign?

I would tell them to be creative. Try new things. Learn from the process. Have fun, have fun, have fun. We still have a lot to learn about implementing incentive campaigns and promoting good health at the workplace—the only way to learn is to try.