WHOSE HEALTH IS IT ANYWAY? THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE WELLNESS PROGRAMS ON HEALTH ENGAGEMENT

Date
2021
Authors
Holden , Kelly Christine
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Davidson , Elizabeth
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Communication and Information Science
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Throughout the United States (US), as the employer’s role in employee healthcare has shifted from the provider (e.g., the company doctor) to sponsor/payer via health insurance premiums, financial commitment has given employers a stake in their employee’s health. Thus, many employers develop employee wellness programs to encourage employees to better manage their health to reduce costs and increase employee productivity. Wellness programs aim to engage and promote healthy behaviors in individuals, while also focusing on preventative care—making employer-sponsored plans just one of many potential influences on an individual employee’s health-related behaviors. However, whether employer-sponsored wellness programs stimulate employees’ engagement in healthy behaviors is not clear. This study investigates the impact wellness programs have on an individual’s health engagement to examine how external motivators associated with the program may influence health behavior change and interact with each other and with internal motivations. This study includes a qualitative case study of two organizations with wellness programs and a cross-sectional survey of employees engaged with wellness programs. The case studies highlighted the influence of personal and contextual factors, such as wellness goals, convenience, and work-life balance in employees’ participation in wellness programs at one’s place of employment. It was clear from the case study that internal sources of motivation—including self-efficacy and decisional balance, underlying elements of the transtheoretical model—were vital to employees’ participation. In addition, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, as identified in self-determination theory, were also important. The cross- sectional survey tested two research models. The first model evaluated how perceived workplace wellness utility, perceived wellness culture, perceived work-life balance, participation motivation, attitude toward health behaviors, self-efficacy, and IT-data feedback mechanisms influence wellness program participation. The second research model examined how perceived contextual factors and workplace wellness participation impacted healthy behaviors. The case study results and the cross-sectional survey provide support for the role of motivation, as influenced by both the transtheoretical model and self-determination theory, to encourage healthy behaviors. The case study highlighted company wellness culture as a vital influence on employees’ wellness participation behavior. However, in the cross-sectional survey, the company wellness culture was significant but less influential than the individual’s perceived work-life balance, attitude toward health behaviors, and self-efficacy. Throughout the last decade, corporate wellness programs have been widely promoted as a way to encourage healthy behaviors and thus improved health among employees, this study provides only weak evidence that such programs sustainably motivate employee behaviors.
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Marketing, Behavioral sciences, Communication, extrinsic motivation, healthy behaviors, intrinsic motivation, Workplace wellness
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192 pages
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