Health Promotion Wellness Program Case Study for Law Firms

Overview of the Workplace Wellness Challenge

In this scenario, an individual has been asked by a local law firm to come into the organization and establish a workplace wellness program to promote the health of its employees. The firm includes a team of 20 lawyers, 3 managers, 45 paralegals, 5 administrative assistants, 2 information technologists, and 4 part-time housekeeping and maintenance staff. The partners agreed the previous year to install a fully equipped gym in their building because doing so would qualify the firm for a discount on health insurance premiums, provided that 85% of employees were participating in the gym for an average of at least 90 minutes per week.

At the time of renewal of the healthcare benefits package, however, the organization was disqualified from the discount because only approximately 10% of employees were participating in the gym. This case study examines solutions for engaging more of the law firm's employees in health promotion activities through the gym.

Why Employees Fail to Exercise and the Role of Incentives

The reasons employees fail to exercise include not having enough time, having too many family obligations, and simply not enjoying exercise. However, there are ways an organization can motivate its employees to become more active. For example, it is reported that approximately 90% of employers offer wellness incentives — financial rewards or prizes to employees who work toward getting healthier (Wieczner, 2013). That figure represents a significant increase from the 57% of companies that offered such perks in 2009. Perks earned by employees for exercising and becoming healthier are reported to average approximately $521.00 per employee (Wieczner, 2013).

According to Stephanie Prouk, a health and wellness consultant with Aon Hewitt, the HR division of Aon PLC, "Incentives themselves are not the silver bullet… It's really important to change the incentive design and keep people on their toes" (as cited in Wieczner, 2013, p. 1). This perspective underscores that while financial incentives are widely used, their design and ongoing evolution are critical to sustained participation.

Educational-Awareness and Action-Based Incentive Programs

The Educational-Awareness Incentive Program involves the company offering rewards for the completion of activities such as risk factor assessments and personal health screenings. Research indicates that incentives worth at least $100 are needed to achieve approximately 75% employee participation, while smaller rewards tend to motivate only 30% to 50% of employees (Wieczner, 2013). A positive aspect of this type of program is that "the simple activities are a good way to introduce employees to healthy behavior and their own risk factors. Companies can also use the data to figure out what their workers' health needs are" (Wieczner, 2013, p. 1). The drawback, however, is that informing employees about their risks and giving them advice does not necessarily lead them to take action (Wieczner, 2013).

A second model is the Action-Based Incentive Program, in which employees earn rewards — and may avoid penalties — by taking concrete steps to improve their health after completing a risk assessment, such as joining a weight-management program or obtaining a preventive screening (Wieczner, 2013). Rewards in this model typically range from $200 to $300. The advantage of the Action-Based Incentive model is that it "motivates employees to take steps to change their unhealthy behaviors" (Wieczner, 2013, p. 1). Its limitation is that the incentives fail to "encourage healthy behavior beyond the completion of the required programs" (Wieczner, 2013, p. 1), meaning long-term behavior change is not guaranteed.