A man recently approached me with a job offer: an executive position in an emerging wellness company. Having enjoyed success in the individual market, the company now wanted to expand to corporate wellness. So far, it all sounded good.
The company’s owner proceeded to share his vision with me. His goal was to attract clients based on the ROI of wellness, then try to instill organizational cultures that would slowly build health and wellbeing at work.
Based on this info alone, can you see why I refused the offer?
To quote Simon Sinek’s famous Ted talk,
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
In Health Promotion, Why Overpowers What
Employees don’t really care what wellness strategies we offer – whether it’d be a fancy intranet wellness portal, the most exciting worksite gym ever designed, or phone apps that can track and analyze every piece of personal data from steps taken to pee samples. What they care about is the reason why we do it.
A culture of wellness doesn’t usually sprout organically from a “show me the money” motivation. If your company offers wellness primarily to reduce health care costs and maximize profits, employees will mirror that attitude. They will find and share ways to trick the system to pocket the incentives without effecting real behavior change.
That’s why I refused the job offer. My skills, dedication, time and energy are too valuable to play make-believe.
Companies should offer wellness programs if they genuinely want their employees to have worthwhile lifestyles, if they want employees that are fulfilled and therefore capable of engagement and innovation, and if they see value in working with people who are proud of who they are.
When these conditions are satisfied, participants will happily engage and achieve great things. But when leadership would rather not have to bother with wellness and would prefer to ask the health fairy to make sure no one gets sick despite overcrowded schedules resulting in poor habits, wellness programs will prove to be as potent as a trail of pixie dust.