Turn wellness investments into real results
Bridging the employee wellness engagement gap may unlock significant ROI through improved health outcomes and reduced costs.
- The engagement gap is real - Employers predicted nearly half their workforce would be highly satisfied with wellness initiatives, yet only a quarter of employees reported high satisfaction.2
- Incentives and communication close the gap - Education, communication and incentives for participation were associated with engagement increases of 40–60%,10 with 70% of employees reporting that rewards motivated them to engage in wellness activities.11
- Wellness investment delivers measurable ROI - Well-designed employee wellness programs were associated with up to $6 in health care savings for every $1 invested,13 while highly satisfied employees showed 23% higher profitability18 and were 89% more likely to recommend their employer as a great place to work.17
Companies invest millions — even billions — into employee wellness programs, creating tremendous potential for improved health outcomes and reduced health care costs.1 The opportunity? Unlocking utilization to maximize return on this valuable investment.
Research revealed an important insight: While employers recognized the proven efficacy of health and wellness programs, employees often needed more support in discovering their full value.2 This represents not a failure but a significant opportunity to bridge the awareness gap and amplify impact.
The data points to real potential. Employers predicted that nearly half their workforce would be highly satisfied with wellness initiatives, yet only a quarter of employees reported high satisfaction,2 showing that there’s substantial room to enhance engagement and help employees realize the value these programs can deliver.
This engagement gap represents untapped ROI. When wellness benefits go underutilized, companies miss opportunities for reduced absenteeism, lower health care costs, improved productivity and stronger employee retention. The good news? Strategic interventions can dramatically boost utilization and unlock these benefits. Discover how leading employers are closing this gap through targeted communication, personalized outreach and adaptive program design — transforming wellness investments into measurable health improvements and meaningful cost savings.
Why wellness benefits may go unused
Multiple barriers can keep employees from using their wellness benefits:
Relevance and personalization shortcomings
One significant barrier to employee utilization of wellness benefits is if employers are taking a one-size-fits-all approach, which may not resonate with a multigenerational workforce that often has diverse needs.3 Employers may compound this problem if they fail to survey their employees about their wellness needs and interests.4 As a result, off-the-shelf benefits may not attract interest or generate the engagement they seek.
Accessibility and convenience challenges
Some employees may perceive wellness benefits as difficult or inconvenient to use, especially if they come with disjointed experiences. For example, maybe employees’ schedules don’t give them time to take advantage of the free or subsidized gym membership their employer offers. Or employees may not use a meditation app because they feel they’re not allowed to do so during work hours, and they’re too busy with family after work.6
Lack of awareness
Even well-designed benefits can go unnoticed. Without consistent communication and easy access to information, employees may simply never encounter the offerings available to them.7 Awareness gaps are often driven by insufficient education efforts, no centralized hub for accessing programs and a lack of guidance tools that connect employees to relevant offerings.8
How employers can motivate usage of wellness benefits
Taken together, these barriers may explain why many employees may not perceive wellness benefits to be valuable or worth activating. Addressing these obstacles requires working in the right order: Before focusing on awareness, employers must first ensure they’re offering benefits employees actually want and would use.
Learn and offer what’s relevant and useful
Employers may want to consider surveying employees about the wellness benefits they’re most interested in — and what would make those benefits easier to use. When designing the survey, keep it anonymous and concise, target a variety of life stages and wellness goals and offer an incentive for completion.9
For instance, with UHC Store, UnitedHealthcare members can shop for health, wellness and lifestyle offerings, most of which can be purchased at a discount, that complement their employer-sponsored benefits. This gives employees more choices to help meet their needs, at any time throughout the year, as those needs arise. To help drive added value, UnitedHealthcare offers employers the ability to fund a lifestyle spending account (LSA) that’s integrated with UHC Store, giving employees dollars to use toward LSA-eligible offerings available within UHC Store. This approach is designed to help offer employers a cost-effective, flexible way to invest in and offer wellness support, while giving employees a broader range of options to personalize their wellness experience.
Simplify access and reduce friction
Employers may want to focus on making benefits as simple as possible to access and use. By offering a single digital entry point into available benefits and offerings — such as the UnitedHealthcare® app and myuhc.com® — members experience a personalized, guided journey. UnitedHealthcare is working to make wellness resources simpler and more accessible for members to navigate and utilize.
Employers can also boost benefit usage by embedding employee health into daily practices, leadership behaviors and organizational values. Creating workplace conditions designed to help employees thrive may motivate them to use the benefits available to them.
Enhance communication, awareness and incentives
Developing a communication strategy to educate employees about wellness benefits and how to access them is key to driving engagement. Communicating about their options throughout the year — not just during open enrollment — is essential.
Education and communication about benefits — along with incentives for participation — were associated with engagement increases of 40–60%.10 In addition, 70% of surveyed employees said that providing rewards and incentives for participating in certain wellness activities, such as biometric screenings and wellness visits, motivated them to engage in those programs.11
With UnitedHealthcare Rewards, for instance, eligible members can earn rewards for completing tasks like taking a health survey, getting an annual checkup and more. The program allows employees to personalize their experience by selecting the activities they wish to participate in and then choosing how they want to spend their earnings. These rewards may also lead employees to be more engaged in other aspects of their health benefits. For instance, those who participated in UHC Rewards visited the UnitedHealthcare app 2.3 times more often than those who didn’t participate.12
The ROI for employers
What do organizations stand to gain from wellness offerings employees want and use? The ROI is significant:
- Direct financial returns – Employee wellness programs were associated with up to $6 in health care savings for every $1 invested13
- Increased productivity – Healthy, engaged employees were found to be more productive and were associated with generating more profit14
- Better talent attraction and retention – Wellness programs helped support employers’ talent attraction and retention efforts.15 For many employees, well-being factors like mental health, work-life balance and job satisfaction were cited as being as important as salary.16
- Higher employee engagement and morale – Organizations offering valued wellness benefits reported higher engagement and goodwill: Employees were found to be 38% more engaged at work, and 89% said they were more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work.17
- Stronger organizational performance – Satisfied employees were associated with 23% higher profitability18— making a strong wellness program an investment in the company’s long-term health
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