What is this about?

This just-released 53-page summary report based on a national sample of 92 health insurance brokerage professionals surveyed in 2019 focuses on their perceptions about important trends affecting employer investment in employee wellness programs along with key decision issues.  Conducted by Wellable, a leading wellness program vendor, the report provides a useful snapshot of the brokerage and benefits field about how they view current employer attitudes about wellness and well-being programming. The benefits professionals surveyed were primarily from Massachusetts, Texas, and California with a few from other states.  The survey respondents work primarily with employers with 250 to 1,000 employees and three-quarters of respondents had more than 5 years of experience in the benefits field.

A few of the major findings contained in this report include:

• Increased investment is likely in disease management, financial wellness, flu shots, free healthy food, gym reimbursement, health coaching, health education/literacy, health fairs, mental health, mindfulness & meditation, stress management/resilience, telemedicine, tobacco cessation, weight management, and wellness challenges.
• Decreased investment is likely in biometric screening, health risk assessments, fitness classes and onsite or near-site clinics.
• The top 5 growth areas in employee wellness in 2020, in their order of likely magnitude, will be:

1^st  Financial wellness

2^nd Telemedicine

3^rd Stress management & resilience

4^th Mental health

5^th Mindfulness & meditation

• A “deep dive” is offered on financial wellness and mental health interventions.
• 82% of employers are perceived to be significantly or somewhat influenced by the measurement of the wellness program’s ROI.
• 80% of employers are significantly influenced by the rising cost of benefits.
• Pricing is the top criteria for evaluating wellness vendors.

Why is this important?

This well-done industry survey report of the brokerage community provides a credible and useful picture of emerging trends in employee wellness.  It identifies the likely growth areas and the employer decision factors that are influencing programming choices.  The report forecasts some of the likely ebbs and flows of programming for the near turn and provides very useful insights for program planning.  This report allows you to answer the question of …:what are the likely newer trends affecting employee wellness in 2020 and beyond?”

What can you do with this document?

• First, look through the 53-page report and focus on the issues that are most important for you.
• Next, put a short “sound bite” together of the report’s key findings (see above) and determine who you should send it to.
• Then, at a minimum send it to your HR and benefits staff.
• Then, determine whether the reported trends are likely to be reflected in the employee groups you are working with.
• Then, decide how else you can use this information to help employees and management staff understand the changing needs of employees and their family members.

In summary, this document contains a useful set of insights from the perspective of the brokerage community on how they see their employer clients approaching employee wellness in 2020 and in the years ahead. Remember – there will always be ebbs and flows around the various targets and interventions that are used in our field.  We have a tendency historically to downplay certain issues and then later to resurrect them.  This survey data reflects a constantly changing and very dynamic aspect of our collective pursuit of employee wellness and well-being.