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5 Critical Workplace Wellness Trends: Engagement and Total Life

TSCIU-WellnessTrends-thumbWorkplace wellness is here to stay. But at the same time, it’s an evolving and immature industry. As wellness puts on its big-boy pants, it will merge intoemployee engagement, with the roles of consumerism, validation, and total quality of life taking center stage. 

In our recent e-book, “Workplace Wellness: 5 Critical Trends for 2014 and Beyond” by The Starr Conspiracy Intelligence Unit, Lou Chapman covers five critical trends for 2014: 

  1. More vendor choice (and increased confusion) 
  2. The continued merger of wellness with employee engagement
  3. Increased consumerism (including devices, motivation, and incentives) 
  4. Heightened need for validation of results and market segmenting
  5. Greater focus on total quality of life 

The Continued Merger of Wellness with Employee Engagement

From its roots in cost containment and its more recent move to health and wellness, corporate wellness is increasingly becoming a pure engagement play. With the introduction of the Affordable Care Act and the incentives it encourages, we are seeing the lines blurred more than ever between wellness and employee engagement. This trend will continue to take engagement beyond the walls of the workplace. 

So what’s the impact of incentives on wellness? Well, 61 percent of employees say incentives are a key reason they participate in wellness programs and 78 percent of employees claim they’re interested in participating in incentive-based programs at work. If you’re not merging your corporate wellness and engagement programs, you are likely not getting the most out of either one. 

Wellness Expands Into Total Quality of Life

Wellness is more than trying to get employees to complete health risk assessments, exercise more, or stop smoking. Consumer-based fitness offers broad menus of support for everything from stress reduction to financial advice — and workplace wellness is taking the same turn. Support beyond an employee’s physical health is something the American workforce is starting to expect from corporate wellness programs — and that ties directly to employee engagement. 

Programs will evolve to include nutrition, emotional support, financial counseling, and more. Wellness programs impact the total quality of life whether you’re prepared to include support for them anyway — and employees who feel their companies care about their total life (beyond just life on the job) are more likely to be engaged and display higher performance. 

What does the consumer fitness industry have in store for workplace wellness? And how can traditional vendors stay competitive and set themselves apart? Find out more this week, while we dive into our recent release, “Workplace Wellness: 5 Critical Trends for 2014 and Beyond.” (Or, skip ahead and download the e-book now).