Aon Hewitt Finds Employee Wellness Incentives Continue to Proliferate, Tie Rewards to Results

By Clive Riddle, August 10, 2012

Aon Hewitt, based on findings from their 2012 Health Care Survey of 1,800 employer organizations that represent over 20 million employees, tells us that “employers are increasingly relying on incentives to drive participation in health programs and encouraging employees and their families to take better care of themselves.”

Here’s data Aon Hewitt shared regarding the state of employers and incentives in 2012:

• 84% offer incentives for participating in a health risk assessment
• 64% offer an incentive for participation in biometric screening
• 51% offer incentives to participants in health improvement and wellness programs
• 59% used monetary incentives to promote participation in wellness and health improvement programs, up from 37% in 2011
• Monetary incentives for participating in disease/condition management programs increased from 17% in 2011 to 54% in 2012
• 46% incorporate some type of VBID (Value Based Insurance Design)
• Less than 10% provide an incentive to address the results of the health risk assessments or take action based on  biometric screening results
• 58% of employers that offer incentives,  provide incentives for completing lifestyle modification programs
• About one-fourth of employers that offer incentives, provide incentives for progress or attainment made towards meeting acceptable ranges for biometric measures

Jim Winkler, Aon Hewitt’s  chief innovation officer for Health & Benefits reaches this conclusion: "Incentives solely tied to participation tend to become entitlement programs, with employees expecting to be rewarded without any sense of accountability for better health. To truly impact employee behavior change, more and more organizations realize they need to closely tie rewards to outcomes and better results rather than just enrollment."