The New York Times recently reported on a study about the effectiveness of well-being programs. The study, which was published by JAMA, found that well-being programs are not delivering. It claims they’re not improving employee’s health measures, providing organizations with health care savings or offering any immediate benefits. But, the analytical approach to the study does not consider key elements of a personalized and holistic well-being program. Instead, it only looks at short-term effects, which don’t tell the whole story.

When it comes to implementing a well-being program, there are several components that are essential to driving engagement, impacting behavior change and achieving desired outcomes. Well-being programs must:

• Support holistic health – Well-being programs need to incorporate tools to help employees improve every aspect of their well-being, including their financial, emotional and mental health. Only by considering employees holistic health can the true value of a program be captured.
• Use a person-first approach – A well-designed program is one that considers the specific needs of an individual, such as their interests, conditions they want to focus on and their readiness to change.
• Make participation multi-modal – In order to reach users where they are, when they’re ready and how they want to interact, a program should incorporate various approaches—including through phone, text, email and in-person. A comprehensive program also considers that individuals respond to different learning styles, such as motivational, educational, social, individual or team-based. Catering to each of these will help organizations capture the widest audience and keep them engaged.
• Create daily habits – While we all want to see results quickly, it’s unrealistic to expect sustained behavior change after only 12-18 months, which is when the JAMA study was conducted. Programs need to create small goals, daily habits and reinforced messaging to drive long-term participant investment and results. Likewise, measurement and reporting need to align with these expectations.
• Improve organizational outcomes – Well-being programs are part of a corporate strategy to drive employee productivity, engagement and retention—while also supporting a culture of health. Making well-being a business priority can improve the lives of employees and infuse workplace culture with greater positivity, energy and commitment.

Benefits beyond cost savings.

For many employers, the benefits of well-being programs go beyond health care savings. In fact, according to a 2018 Deloitte employer survey, only 23 percent of organizations said their well-being program was designed to lower health insurance costs.¹

Instead, organizations are focusing on improving the well-being of their workforce to help drive employee engagement, retention and productivity—and it’s been working. The same Deloitte survey found that most organizations are seeing a major return on investment from their well-being program outside of their health care savings. Some examples include:

• 43 percent believed that their well-being program reinforced their organization’s mission and vision.
• 60 percent reported that it improves employee retention.
• 61 percent said that it improves employee productivity and bottom-line business results.¹

Rethinking how we measure well-being.

To gauge the effectiveness of well-being programs, you need to consider how you define and ultimately measure it. The industry has traditionally focused on assessing the impact of programs on lowering specific health risks such as smoking, stress and weight, with little acknowledgment of the interplay between those risk—and how, taken together—they provide a more relevant definition of well-being and a more accurate reflection of value.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, we explain how if an employee loses weight they will likely feel healthier. In turn, they may sleep better, have more energy and experience more positivity. This could also result in them getting off of blood pressure medication and living their life more fully.

Just one healthy lifestyle change can lead to many benefits, which is why it’s important that organizations measure the impact that an improvement in one risk can have on other health risks. For more information on WebMD’s measurement approach, visit our e-book: How to Measure Your Well-Being Program.

Well-being programs are not one-size-fits-all.

At WebMD, we believe a well-being program should be a part of every organization’s corporate strategy. While the JAMA study may say otherwise, it only examines one particular organization and its limited findings should not be considered true across all industries. In our experience, a well-designed well-being program can help organizations reduce costs, improve productivity and provide employees with the resources they need to live happier, healthier lives.

Related Content:

• E-Book: How to Measure Your Well-Being Program
• E-Book: Measure Your Health Coaching Program Like a Champ

A successful well-being program often depends on leadership support. No matter how dedicated you are to your well-being program, you can only get so far without help from HR leaders, executives and other decision-makers at your organization.

The more supportive your leadership is, the more your company will benefit, too. Organizations with very supportive leadership are two and a half times more likely to report a substantial improvement in medical cost trends.¹ Not to mention, they’re nearly four times more likely to report a substantial improvement in employee health risks compared to organizations with minimally supportive leadership.

But that’s not all! Whether you’re looking to gain leadership buy-in or encourage your leaders to become more involved in your well-being program, there’s no limit to what your program can achieve when your entire organization is onboard with well-being.

Start a wave of well-being at your organization.

The impact leaders can have on workplace well-being can be profound. They’re in a position to utilize policies, programs, resources and best practices that can help establish a thriving well-being culture and encourage better health for your entire organization.²

By putting policies in place that demonstrate they care about the health of their employees, they can start a wave of well-being at your organization. One that can ripple throughout and deliver a range of positive outcomes, including:

• Higher program participation
• Healthier body weights
• Lower absenteeism

Overcome barriers and get leadership buy-in.

Getting leadership buy-in can be a tricky task. While most organizational leaders want to improve the health of their employees and reduce their company’s health insurance costs, they often have competing priorities and workplace well-being can fall to the side. But, with a carefully planned approach, you can greatly improve your chances of getting your leaders onboard.

To help you get buy-in, I’ve listed five strategies that can help you convince the leaders at your organization that well-being should be a top priority.

1. Present the business case.

At the end of the day, leadership needs to understand that well-being programs can help impact their company’s bottom line and control costs. To capture their attention, develop a strong business case that drives this point home.

2. Build an emotional connection.

Once you have your leadership’s attention, appeal to their emotional side. Share examples of success stories from other organizations, talk about the impact well-being programs can have on individuals and present any other information that will connect with them on a personal level.

3. Identify and recruit an executive champion.

It helps to have friends in high places. To find an executive champion, identify a leader who has a strong personal connection to well-being. Once they agree to take the role, set expectations with them about the type of support and time commitment you will need from them to help make the program a success.

4. Gather feedback and align goals.

Once you get buy-in, make sure your leadership gets what they want from your well-being program. To make sure they’re satisfied, hand out surveys to gather information about what’s important to them and then make adjustments to your program as needed.

5. Formalize a well-being program review.

It’s important to keep your leadership engaged in your well-being program. To help keep them involved throughout the year, hold formal presentations to review the program, demonstrate the program’s ROI and share success stories.

Realize the benefits of leadership buy-in.

Working closely with leadership is crucial to building and sustaining a culture of well-being. Senior leaders and managers have the power to achieve buy-in and support from other levels of the organization, dedicate the necessary resources to the effort and create an environment where employees are empowered to take control of their health.

As you seek buy-in from leadership at your organization, remember to follow the five principles outlined above and reinforce how a healthy workforce can help improve the bottom line of any business.

Related Content

• E-Book: Building Your Well-Being Champion Network
• E-Book: 4 Steps to Culture Strategy & Implementation

One of the most important qualities of a leader is being resilient. In an agile, adaptive organization, a high level of engagement is critical at all levels of leadership.  Strong leadership impacts culture, engagement and performance.  And in most organizations, leadership is not just at the executive level, but really anyone in a leadership role – managers, team leaders or anyone that has the ability to foster productivity and engagement. Unfortunately, according to a study by Deloitte, 68 percent of business leaders are overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change and are unengaged.¹

The good news is, resilience can be taught. It’s not a trait you’re born with, but rather a quality that is developed through education, experience and commitment.

At WebMD Health Services, we understand the value of investing in resilience. It’s why we partner with meQuilibrium for individual stress and resilience training and why we are even more excited to now offer meQ Empower —a scalable training tool used to foster resilient leaders and agile teams that can handle tough problems, possess the skills and adaptive capacity to face change, and drive better business outcomes.

Still not convinced you should consider offering a resilience program that targets leaders at your organization? Then read the top three ways resilient leaders can help drive success at your organization:

1. Setting the right example.

Leaders can have a strong influence within your organization. Their words, actions and behaviors can influence the rest of your employees—in either a positive or negative way.

For example, if your management takes time to relax and reduce stress, they can motivate their supporting staff to take care of their personal well-being as well. But if your leaders regularly work until they burn out, their team members will feel pressured to also compromise their work-life balance and allow stress to affect their health.

2. Ability to champion change.

In business, the only constant is change. There will always be new technology, insights and competitors emerging. But by investing in resilience, you can create strong leaders who are quick to adapt, make decisions and avoid becoming overly stressed during the seemingly endless disruption.

During these industry shake-ups, there is also an opportunity for your organization to emerge as a leader. And with resilient people at the helm, your company will have a better chance to innovate, adapt and stay one step ahead.²

3. A more productive organization.

A resilient leader can help create a faster, more flexible and increasingly productive organization.

They can help build trust and accountability among employees by establishing an open culture, encourage ongoing growth and innovation by knowing when to take calculated risks and motivate their team members to put their health first by leading as an example.  Combined, these factors help to create a healthy organization that runs at its absolute best. ³

The importance of resilient team members.

Resilient team members are just as important to the health of your organization as strong leaders. After all, resilient employees are more likely to avoid illness, operate with mental toughness and maintain productivity.⁴

Some additional benefits of resilience training for team members include: ⁴

• Improved goal-setting – Resilient employees have clear, achievable goals in mind. They know their role, objective and the steps they need to take to achieve their desired organizational outcomes.
• Better skill-building – With resilience training, team members are able to improve their critical thinking, self-awareness and communication skills. It can help them be more in-tune with the situation they’re facing as well as the needs of their co-workers.
• An open workplace – Employees who are resilient are more likely to tell you what’s on their mind. They’re not afraid to raise alternative viewpoints, give their opinions or share their personal experiences—helping your team make the best possible decisions.

A program that empowers your workforce.

To help build resilient leaders and team members at your organization, consider adding meQ Empower to your well-being program. At WebMD Health Services, we’ve found that it’s helped us build resilient leaders and agile team members who can handle tough problems, adapt in the face of change and produce better business outcomes.

To help drive these results, meQ Empower is structured around verified, clinical skills. Why it works:

• Engagement – Interactive courses help your employees develop powerful soft skills such as emotional control, empathy, positivity and connection to work.
• Personalization – Expand upon your employee’s current ability to be resilient by helping them identify signature emotions and calm emotional reactions.
• Expertise – Take advantage of proven, cognitive behavioral theory-based resilience training methods applied to leadership.
• Flexibility – Self-paced training emphasizes the core habits, beliefs, thinking styles and behaviors that influence management styles and team dynamics.

Resiliency—a worthy investment.

Resilience training is something few organizations invest in today—89 percent of companies today report the need to strengthen their leadership.⁵ But with corporate life constantly evolving and presenting new obstacles, it’s more important than ever to teach your employees to become strong, adaptable and resilient to organizational stress.

Related Content:

• Blog:  Webinar Recap: Why Resilience Matters
• On-Demand Webinar: Why Resilience Matters

Coach personality attributes and motivational training

Of course you want health coaches who are experienced and trained in health sciences and health promotion. But health knowledge is only part of the picture. To help someone change an ingrained behavior such as smoking takes more than a health degree. Coaches should have personality attributes that help participants feel respected, empowered, and personally responsible for their goals and actions. Training in approaches such as motivational interviewing expands on those personality traits. These health coaches help individuals place value on health, address ambivalence to change, set goals, own actions, build supportive environments and networks, overcome obstacles, and celebrate successes.

Clinical oversight

A health coaching program needs clinical oversight to make sure that coaches follow protocols defined by evidence-based guidelines, to review clinical solutions, and to ensure intervention credentialing. Look for a chief medical officer (CMO) and a clinical advisory board with recognized experts from a variety of backgrounds such as medicine, behavior change science, obesity, tobacco cessation, and health analytics.

How participants are identified as coaching-eligible

Neither behavior nor health status is determined by one factor alone. A combination of the number of risks, acuity of risks, and the impact that each risk has on overall health and healthcare costs more accurately stratifies individuals into the right intensity program. Participants may also be identified for coaching based on their stage of being ready to make a change in their health behaviors. But don’t overlook individuals who report being unready to change; most individuals are willing to work on at least one risk factor and coaching may help people become ready to change.

Whole-person health coaching

A whole-person approach to health coaching takes all of an individual’s health risks and conditions into consideration, as opposed to a siloed approach that limits health coaching efforts to one health risk. An employee who is struggling with weight, stress, and a sedentary lifestyle needs one comprehensive coaching program, not three siloed programs. A participant-centered approach uses a variety of techniques to help participants find their own motivation to make lasting changes for improved health.

Coaching is part of a broader health management program

Effective health coaching is incorporated within a broader population health management initiative. Make sure that your coaching program leverages robust online and offline capabilities that allow coaches to access and view participants’ progress.

Additional services to look for

• Health management consulting services to help you design and optimize your health management and wellness programs.
• Strategic engagement services that include communications and incentives support to encourage the highest possible participation rates.
• Onsite health promotion services such as health fair and biometric screening coordination to help launch your program.
• Outcomes reporting and analytics support to demonstrate your program’s efficacy to senior management and identify specific opportunities to optimize your programs going forward.

To learn more about best practices in health coaching, download our eBook “The Essential Guide to Health Coaching.”

*Photo Credit: Mike Johnson – TheBusyBrain.com

How does this make you feel? Does it impact the choices you make in your energy consumption moving forward?

Peer pressure – in a good way

This scenario is from a study conducted by OPOWER between 2009 and 2011. [1. opower.com/uploads/library/file/1/allcott_2011_jpubec_-_social_norms_and_energy_conservation.pdf] The company studied the effect of its engagement programs related to energy usage in an effort to demonstrate that OPOWER’s targeted and social-comparison programs had a favorable impact on lowering the overall and individual utilization of energy. OPOWER partnered with utilities on the West Coast, in the Midwest, in the urban Northeast, and in one suburban area in a Mountain state to deliver home energy reports that highlighted an energy user’s monthly electrical utilization as compared to that of his “Efficient Neighbors” and of “All Neighbors.” The report characterized each customer’s efficiency standing as “Below Average,” “Good,” or “Great” – and highlighted high ranking with one or two smiley faces as illustrated in the example.

Based on data from >600,000 treatment and control households throughout the country, the study estimated that a typical OPOWER program focused on changing behavior to lower energy usage resulted in an energy-consumption reduction of 2 percent. This decrease was considered comparable to a price increase of between 11-20 percent!

This approach falls somewhere between a carrot and a stick by applying peer pressure without the associated peer actually realizing it. It gives individuals clear information on how they rank relative to their neighbors so they can more easily evaluate their usage and make changes based on this information.

This type of feedback loop has also been recently applied in politics by MoveOn.org. Specifically, just prior to the recent presidential election, MoveOn targeted 12 million registered users in battleground states who didn’t cast a ballot in the last presidential election with “voter report cards,” which based a voter’s (or non-voter’s) grade on how often she voted in the past – and compared her voting record to that of her neighbors. See example:

Regardless of your political leanings, these types of approaches to compare your behavior to the behavior of your friends, family, peers, or even nearby acquaintances seems to resonate and is becoming a common approach to encouraging behavior change.

Feedback loops and population health management

While these examples may not seem directly applicable to health management, the concept of providing individuals continuous feedback is. As we move into a new era of healthcare consumerism, it is becoming more and more important for individuals to have the information they need to make informed decisions about their healthcare – and to encourage them to use that information to make good choices. Whether comparing hospitals to better understand quality levels related to particular conditions or procedures, or comparing providers on total cost, informed consumers will drive better decisions and help manage healthcare costs.

Feedback loops are also a critical component of driving employee behavior change around health and wellness. For example, WebMD uses feedback loops in our health risk assessment that helps people understand how their health status compares to peers in their company.

Have you applied feedback loops to your health management program?

• Can employees easily compare cost and quality information when determining which benefit plan is right for them? Is the process interactive, giving them immediate feedback to what-if scenarios and different options?
• Are employees encouraged to “know their numbers” and get a biometric screening? Do you provide feedback in the form of annual reports on overall population risk reductions or personal case studies in employee newsletters?
• Do you encourage company-wide wellness challenges that give employees fun, friendly competitions (with rankings and prizes) to improve healthy exercise or eating patterns?
• Do you provide an online health risk assessment that helps employees understand their current health risks, and where they rank in comparison to their peers?

Feedback loops are one element of “gamification” – a popular new approach to engage with audiences. You can learn more in our white paper  or archived webinar.

Integrated health coaching and health resources keep quitters on track

WebMD Health Services integrates our whole-person health coaching and our online health resources for a step-by-step approach to smoking cessation:

1. Help smokers get ready to quit. Smokers are identified through the WebMD HealthQuotient^SM (HQ) health risk assessment, which also evaluates their readiness to change and other health risks. Smokers who want to quit but aren’t ready yet can be enrolled in whole-person health coaching to help them set and achieve goals around other risk factors. As they gain success, they build self-efficacy. And as they explore their ambivalence to quitting, they get closer to being ready to change. When they’re ready, they’re moved into Tobacco Cessation Coaching.
2. Support smokers through the quitting process. Our intensive Tobacco Cessation Coaching^SM program combines health coaching by tobacco treatment specialists, integrated nicotine replacement therapy, and personalized online health resources to help people successfully quit smoking. Participants also use WebMD’s online smoking cessation program, and they have access to expert-moderated Message Board Exchanges, personalized messaging, and health incentives.
3. Help smokers stay quit. After smokers quit successfully, a WebMD whole-person health coach helps them prevent relapse with strategies to manage tobacco cravings, prevent weight gain, manage stress, and continue improving overall health.

The Impact of Tobacco Cessation Programs

Other smoking cessation programs may take a more limited approach, such as telephone-only, web-only, or pharmaceutical discount-only. These typically deliver quit rates from 15% to 45%. In contrast, our Tobacco Cessation Coaching program, along with a financial health incentive, delivered a 57% success rate to one of our large employer clients. If you’d like more information on our tobacco cessation program, please contact us at connect@webmd.net.