With the adaptation of remote, hybrid, or in-person work environments, many employers are turning to wellness programs to support their employees.

Organizations don’t have to build these programs from scratch. Wellness program vendors can fill the gaps of expertise in creating an effective program that best serves the employee population while having the infrastructure to launch programs quickly. This article discusses what to look for in a wellness program provider and highlights 5 of the best wellness vendors in the marketplace.

Our Top 5 Best Corporate Wellness Program Vendors

In this post:

1. What to Look for in an Employee Wellness Program Vendor

a. Comprehensive Strategy
b. Data Tracking & Programming
c. Personalized Programs
d. Safety

2. Strive Well-Being

3. Alyfe

4. Sonic Boom Wellness

5. WellSteps

6. Remote Team Wellness

7. Strive Delivers Turnkey Wellness Programming

What to Look for in Employee Wellness Program Vendors

 

Comprehensive Strategy

Suppose an organization has an existing wellness program. Depending on the program framework, they’ll want their vendor to make implementing and sustaining the offerings easy. Most organizations don’t have internally dedicated people for the wellness program (wellness coordinators, etc.), so it’s important to ensure the selected wellness vendors have an account manager to lighten the administrative load and technology platforms to help make the user experience seamless.

For organizations designing a new wellness program, look for vendors with technology systems and tools in place to help reduce the administrative load, such as the collection and management of liability waivers, class/event registration, and data collection and reporting. Your wellness vendors should be an extension of your internal wellness team and be willing to collaborate to ensure a successful program delivery that meets your clearly defined goals and objectives.

Optimally, they’ll also have a pricing structure that allows managing a budget to be cost-effective. Wellness program providers can offer consultation on how to allocate the budget to best serve the wellness population, as it directly affects the program’s design. For example, does the organization want to serve the broader population with a group-based programming model like fitness classes and webinars, or focus on more individualized programming services such as health coaching?

The wellness vendor should provide an established timeline to launch the program, and they should assist in designing and managing the playbook for the wellness offerings.

Discover everything you need to know about implementing a corporate wellness program.

Data Tracking & Programming

To measure the program’s effectiveness on individual employees and the organization as a whole, it’s imperative to routinely track and report on data metrics.

 You can use different types of data to analyze the program’s impact. For example, enrollment, registration, and participation (or non-participation) data can be used to assess program engagement and assist with making program adjustments to evolve the strategy. It’s common to administer an initial needs and interest wellness survey, quarterly feedback surveys, and to track monthly attendance. Tracking attendance data also gives the value-added benefit of incorporating fun wellness challenges without needing a fancy and costly engagement platform.

 To measure the cost-containment goals for a comprehensive wellness program, health plan utilization data and other measurements such as attendance, engagement surveys, workers comp claims, etc. must be assessed based on the organization’s strategic objectives. Most wellness programs are assessed on a Value-On-Investment (VOI) basis since taking care of your employee’s well-being is the right thing to do. Most organizations evaluate employee satisfaction, positive impacts on the company culture, employee retention, and employee feedback.

 Company cost-benefits are indicated by analyzing absenteeism, workers’ compensation, and productivity data. Not having routine data collection is a pitfall of a wellness program, and a vendor can help structure those systems based on the defined strategic goals of the wellness program.

 Ideally, a wellness vendor’s programming has custom communication tools, is intuitive and user-friendly, and has built-in engagement components. Also, the organization shouldn’t need you to manually notify or remind registrants of upcoming classes or workshops. This should be inherent in the vendor’s communications arsenal.

 The goal in working with top wellness vendors is that they take on the majority of the program administration, allowing the internal program managers to focus more on the overall vision and strategy of the program. All of these elements take a lot more time than anticipated, so it is vital to evaluate vendors based on how easy they can implement and support a long-term sustainable program. This is especially useful for organizations in the middle-market (<1,000 employees) as these groups don’t usually have dedicated internal wellness program managers.

Personalized Programs

When it comes to wellness, one program does not fit all. Look for a vendor that provides a dedicated account manager and support team that proactively monitors ongoing engagement and program sustainability. They should assist in surveying the organization’s population to tailor the program’s offerings and be flexible enough to accommodate the changing needs of the workforce. Wellness vendors should take an innovative approach to each program launch and have plenty of variety in their wellness offerings.

Onsite and virtual class offerings should be tailored for each client and exclusive to that employee population to create wellness opportunities and promote organizational cohesion, staff bonding, and improved culture.

Safety

Lastly, organizations should choose a wellness program provider that places a strong emphasis on safety. You want your wellness vendor to have established quality-control protocols, select their staff carefully, and have a track record of minimal to no incidents. It’s important to work with an organization with comprehensive insurance policies, including workers’ comp and professional liability.

One common pitfall organizations make is utilizing internal employees or family/friends to support wellness program components, which can result in major risks and liability to the company. While this is a fun and positive company initiative, it is essential to do it right and mitigate any potential risks and liability from these services.

Strive Well-Being

Organizations count on Strive whether they need to design a roadmap and implement programs quickly, or to help support their existing wellness programs. Strive is an established company and wellness authority in the industry for more than 15 years. Our team provides a wide variety of solutions to meet most organization’s needs, including program and staffing management (fitness centers and wellness coordinators) onsite/virtual classes, health talks, onsite chair massage, cooking demos, and coaching services.

Strive hits the mark on everything mentioned above, dedicated program coordinators, technology systems, reporting, and a strong emphasis on safety. Strive’s aim is to make wellness easy, whether you are a smaller mid-market group or large enterprise-level organization.

Discover the best wellness management companies.

Alyfe Wellbeing Strategies

Family-owned and woman-led, Alyfe Wellbeing Strategies is on a mission to take a personalized approach to wellness. By collecting well-being objectives and health risks, they utilize specific resources to encourage employees to engage in behavior change. Their organization has moved more towards providing a wellness engagement platform that complements Strive’s wellness offerings.

Alyfe Wellbeing offers account management and a wellness engagement platform.

Sonic Boom Wellness

Sonic Boom Wellness prides itself on its out-of-the-box methods. Their goal is for employees to have so much health-habit improvement fun at work, that they take it home to their families, too. Some of Sonic Boom’s secret weapons are stimulating gaming mechanics, high-energy, socially-charged engagement tools, and contests and challenges.

WellSteps

WellSteps utilizes evidence-based and evidence-producing solutions to guide its wellness programs. They use tools like an ROI calculator, implementation guide, and wellness compliance checker to measure their success, while gamified challenges based on behavior change science drive the results. This is a great solution for large enterprise level groups looking to incorporate a wellness engagement platform.

Remote Team Wellness

With an impressive 65%-95% employee engagement rate, Remote Team Wellness administers the conceptualization, hosting, and management of corporate virtual wellness team-building events. Their entirely virtual platform leverages pre-vetted leading wellness facilitators to lead a wide selection of wellness classes.

Strive Delivers Turnkey Wellness Programming

As a leading industry authority, Strive has been implementing strategy and robust program offerings for 15 years. From developing large-scale wellness programs to integrating with longstanding wellness programs, our experience continues to inform how Strive operates and adapts to each client we serve. Please connect with our wellness experts by scheduling a discovery call to explore the possibilities for your organization.