Dr. Eric Finkelstein, PhD, Executive Center Director, Lien Centre of Palliative Care; Professor at Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical Center
“In 2017, there will be an increased emphasis on personal responsibility, such that employers and insurers will incentivize individuals for meeting healthy behaviors, partly through the increasing use of wearables and other measurement devices.”
Finkelstein’s prediction speaks to a growing body of research that is evaluating the effect of wearable devices on long-term behavior change. Wearables are no passing fad in the workplace. Devices that help employees track their behavior are helping them stay mindful of their decisions, challenges and progress toward their goals.
Ron Goetzel, PhD, Senior Scientist and Director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
“In the months and years ahead, employees will have a greater say in the design, implementation, and fine-tuning of programs.”
In the past decade, workplace well-being focused on more than just physical health and fitness. Programs have dramatically expanded to address stress, sleep, nutrition, finances, social relationships, mindfulness and even spirituality. Employers now understand that the journey to well-being is a deeply personal one, defined uniquely by the needs and desires of each individual employee.
Dr. Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, Director, Human Nature Lab, Yale University; Co-Director, Yale Institute for Network Science
“There will be an increasing awareness of the power that relationships at work have to shape our wellness. The focus on online interactions will shift back to face-to-face interactions at work, which are powerful forces on human behavior.”
Dr. Christakis stresses social dynamics and their impact on both individual and population health. Health and healthy behavior, such as smoking cessation or weight loss, can spread through social groups. Because most of our waking hours are spent at work, the workplace social network is perhaps the most powerful environment for developing healthy habits.
David Batman, MBChB, Specialist Consultant, Occupational Medicine; Former Head of Occupational Health, Safety, and Employee Well-being for Nestle
“In 2017, there will be a move from ROI to a VOI evaluation, which will necessitate a new business dashboard including metrics such as engagement, resilience, concentration, fatigue, sleep, stress etc.”
As the wellness industry evolves, there is a need for new data points to understand how employee well-being affects businesses. Medical and pharmaceutical claims have been a traditional method for evaluating wellness ROI, but that doesn’t fully capture the VOI of the complex, holistic nature of strategic well-being programs. Measuring VOI attempts to understand and explore all of the different areas in an organization where value is created through the enhancement of employee wellbeing.
I-Min Lee, MBBS, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health
“Large increases in prescription drug costs to employers will increase the emphasis on worksite well-being programs that work to reduce the need for such drugs. There will be more evidence-based evaluation of what programs truly work.”
The dramatic price increases for many prescription drugs, including those used to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes diabetes will lead employers to demand proven outcomes from their investments. Data-light, feel-good programs without any real measurement of outcomes are on their way out. In 2017, well-being programs will become central, critical business imperatives that are necessary for optimizing not just the productivity and performance of employees but also for managing the bottom line.
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