The rise in interest around
Choice overload
Has your organization implemented more than one type of health benefit this year? If yes, your employees may be experiencing choice paralysis. This refers to being unable to decide which benefit to pursue due to overthinking or being overwhelmed by too many options.
You could have an amazing benefits package with ten different options for employees to choose from. The problem with this is that it's putting much more of the burden on the employee to decide, and as a result, making them far more likely to give up researching and searching through blanketed options.
In order to combat choice paralysis, you as the employer must remove as much of the burden as possible. This can be done by implementing more personalized and contextual suggestions in your employee health benefits program, and not providing more than three to five suggestions at any point in time.
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Trust
Healthcare is notorious for being untrustworthy or situations panning out far different than what we expected. Any negative experience an employee has makes them less likely to engage in that situation again. This is why the element of trust is so crucial for benefits and benefit referrals.
These benefits must be delivered from a source that your employees already have a relationship with. The majority of employees have trusting relationships with their employer to a large degree, whether that's the CEO, head of HR, head of people, etc. The trust tends to fall off, however, when an employee is handed to a third-party such as a long-form benefits page or a new health program they are unfamiliar with. Trust hasn't been established and the burden is yet again put on the employee. Employees may not know their benefits options, and when the burden is placed on them to find them all, they are less likely to engage.
This barrier can be removed by simply bringing familiarity to the process. Who's sending the initial email? Is it easy for them to ask questions and find answers? Are the choices clearly laid out? By initiating trust from the start, employees are more likely to engage and find value in the benefits.
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Increasing motivation
The third barrier to address is a lack of motivation. Sometimes increasing motivation can be achieved through a simple lever like contextualization, or choice architecture. Sometimes it's having the right benefit pushed to an employee in a timely manner. Other times that might not be enough. We all feel more motivated or perceive higher value when an option is presented within the proper context, whether relevant to one's health profile or in the right moment of need. Without this, it's too easy for someone to think, "This isn't for me," even if it actually is.
They might be afraid to explore a benefit because they're worried about potential costs and not wanting to take action. This is where another lever — targeted incentives — can be very beneficial. Targeted incentives increase motivation by interrupting the status quo bias and banner bias. People tend to stick with their current default state, whatever that is, and are increasingly immune to informational communications and advertisements due to their volume.
Investing a relatively small and targeted amount into an incentive for a specific behavior will often force this tendency to stay put or enhance it by elevating the experience into a new mindset. "Yes, I would prefer having that $5.00 versus not having that $5.00." Now the employee is more motivated by considering what they have to gain, even if they were previously immune to the value from a health perspective. A small financial or reward-based incentive can elevate the offer in employees' minds, enable them to think about the options differently and, ultimately, improve the likelihood of action.\
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For another example, Well regularly reaches out to our members without a primary care physician (PCP) to encourage them to get one. In order to increase the success rate of members finding PCPs, we added an incentive of 100 pts (equal to $1.00 in gift cards) to our offer. This resulted in a 5.5 times higher success rate of matching members with a PCP. For every $4.67 in rewards spent, we got an additional person to get a provider and book an appointment.
As the demand for employee wellness benefits continues to grow, organizations must recognize the importance of aligning these offerings with employee needs and take into account their different perceptions. While the expansion of wellness programs is a positive step, it is crucial to address the disconnect that often exists between what is provided and how employees value these benefits. By tackling the issues of choice paralysis, building trust through familiar channels, and ensuring easy access to information, employers can enhance the effectiveness of their wellness initiatives by better engaging their employees.
