Great Affordable Wellness Programme Incentive Ideas

by Spectrum Wellness

Wellness programme incentives are an important tool employers can use to inspire healthier employee behaviour. They provide companies with important opportunities for short- and long-term cost efficiencies, but only if employees actually want to contribute in a meaningful way. In recent years, there has been a huge drive towards providing incentives for employee wellness programmes. There are many types of wellness programme incentives and just as many different items that must be met for employees to earn those incentives.

There are three primary types of incentives, you can be the judge of what you think will work best for your programme!
 
• Participation-based incentives offer rewards for anyone who signs up to participate in your wellness programme, this encourages overall participation
• Progress-based incentives offer rewards to participants who make attempts towards completing their wellness goals. This is a really great way to focus on improving the health of each employee
• Outcome-based incentives offer rewards for employees who achieve the overall task goal
 
Usually wellness programme incentives are money based: cash, gift certificates, discounts on programmes or merchandise, and so on. However today we are going to be looking at some affordable incentives that don’t have to break the bank:

Offer flexi-time – If possible consider incentivising with a flexi-time schedule. It might seem daunting to allow your employees to make their own schedules, but it allows them to work during their own preferred hours when they feel the most productive. To give yourself more control, you can set a block of time that is required to be in the office to allow for easy meeting scheduling and group tasks.

Exercise at work – This is a great incentive that doubles as part of the wellness programme. If there are available funds, an exercise space could be created at the office that only wellness members can use. A more affordable option could be to organise group runs, cycles, treks or yoga sessions that are available to all participants.

Increase annual leave days – This is an extremely effective wellness programme incentive, as who doesn’t love to take an extra day off?! While it might seem a bit counter-intuitive to allow your employees an extra day every year, but it’s actually been proven that taking a well-earned break from the workplace can help improve productivity and reduce burnout.

Acknowledge success – This is a simple method to endorse the importance of your wellness programme. When your employees reach certain markers or sign up to participate, you can recognise them in company newsletters, on notice boards, or via your social channels.

Partner with Local Businesses – Reach out to local businesses near you and develop partnerships to offer your wellness participants, for example: discounted gym memberships, tickets to movies and theatre shows, or even healthy meals. Another great incentive as part of your overall wellness programme incentives which also helps your local businesses.

Offer Parking Incentives – Offer up-close reserved parking spots for those who have achieved goals within the programme. To some employees, this is really great and you may be surprised to see which employees become eager to participate because of this one incentive!

Whatever type of incentives you decide to go with, they all help provide excellent encouragement to increase engagement in your employee wellness programme. But these six are some of the most affordable ideas to help your employees stay on track while you stay well within your budget!