Also see this post on Benefits Buzz - a featured blog at Workforce.com

A lot of people think that being healthy is all about the stressful hour at the gym and an ascetic lifestyle/diet rivaling that of a cloistered monk (and not in one of those monasteries that brews yummy beer). The truth is actually a lot less likely to make it the stuff of a good television mini-series.

Small, intelligently thought out changes made consistently over long periods of time are much more likely to produce sustainable results than are heroic efforts that can only be sustained for a couple of months at a time. In wellness, it seems, pacing is key. This is true for both the individual wellness program and the corporate wellness program.

We covered an individual wellness example on our blog and will cover a corporate wellness example in our HR & Benefits newsletter.

Part 2: When you don't measure, you fail.

True story. At Recess, we talk to a lot of people about corporate wellness. Many people say they have a corporate wellness program in place. When asked what program entails they they typically rattle off one or all of the following answers: a wellness fair, an online portal offered for free or low cost by their health plan or Employee Assistance Program, a yoga class, on-site massage, a corporate gym membership.


Our next question?

"What is participation like in your {program name here} program?"
 
The answer is normally a variation of one of two responses.

The truth:

"I don't know," or, "It is pretty lousy - just a handful of people."

The euphemistic version of the truth cooked up to make the respondent feel better about spending money on this program:

Respondent: Well there are a couple of people here who seem to really like the program and {more totally anecdotal blah blah blah} there's been quite a positive response.
Recess consultant: So have you participated?
Respondent: ......
Recess consultant: So about how many people, would you say, have given you this positive feedback?
Respondent: A lot.  Well, the Director's assistant...
Recess consultant: 2? 20?
Respondent: Maybe 3
Recess consultant: Out of how many employees?
Respondent: 2,000

Ok so the rosey assessment of their wellness offering is based on a sample size of less than 1% of their employee population??!?!?! Are they not scared for their job and reputation?  In this economy if you are justifying sizable expenditures of time or money with anecdotal feedback and a quantitative evaluation with a sample size of 0.0015% you risk getting fired. 


Manage programs so that you get more for each $

When companies, consumers, the government, banks, and - hey - just about anyone who turns on the radio or TV these days is blowing a freaking gasket about the economy you need to be able to show that you are making effective use of your company's money.

Even if your company's cash position is solid, perception is reality and investors, managers and employers are taking this very grave moment in history as an opportunity for a little financial introspection. When the top brass turns its eye on your pet programs, you'd better show that they have value and that you are creatively exploring ways to get more for your money.


Today we will let sleeping dogs lie and side step the issue of how effective any of the specific programs mentioned above are likely to be outside the confines of a strategic, planned, well-measured and effective wellness program design. Let's just assume all of the programs are fantastic and each is amazingly effective at transforming the health of its participants {cough}.

Even then, the very minimum employers could do to ensure the effectiveness of wellness programs, but often don't do, is to measure them. Data is one of those little things - those small, pesky continuous things that is not fun to collect, clean or analyze for most of us.

On the flip side, those who have meticulously gathered data around wellness have shown that well-rounded, multi-year, multicomponent wellness programs produce significant, positive return on investment (ROI). This is especially vital to businesses who shoulder the health care costs of employees - a cost that now makes up the lion's share of employer sponsored benefits.

The catch?

• The average study length of effective, multi-component wellness programs is 3.6 years.
• The average cost of effective, multi-component wellness programs is $150 (or more!) per employee per year.
• The average participation in effective, multi-component wellness programs must be more than 40% in order to make a dent in health care costs.

If you are going to be allowed to manage a program that is responsible for that much in spending, for those many years, and touches half or more of your workforce, do you think anecdotal evidence is going to help this program survive the revolving door of HR Directors, C-Suite execs or directors at your company?

Take a minute to answer that.

No?


Measure measure measure.

Look at the data in excruciating detail. Get deep into it. Ask questions. Are you not a numbers person? Find someone who is. Hire someone who is. Make excel your Valentine. Ask all the questions that the CFO and shareholders will be asking you. Dissect the data 20 different ways until you feel satisfied that you understand.

At a minimum - measure program cost and participation and ask how and whether you can get more people to particpate for the same or less money. When someone asks you how many people use your program and how much it costs per person, produce a cogent answer. If the number looks unimpressive present a convincing plan on how you will improve matters.


The easiest way to ensure you do this is to pick 6 key things to measure early on in your program. Define what you are measuring, how that measure relates to some of your company's strategic goals, where the data comes from and how often it needs to be collected, and some of the considerations and assumptions you are making when analyzing the data. Once you've pulled that together in a one page overview, simply filling in new data points should not be too difficult.