One of the most common challenges HR leaders face with their wellness programs is communicating the benefits to employees in order to drive enrollment and engagement. According to Gallup research, 40% of employees with access to wellness programs were unaware those programs even existed.

It may seem strange that a business would have trouble reaching their own employees. But the average person in an office environment receives 122 work emails every day. That’s a substantial amount of competition.

How do you cut through the noise and effectively reach employees with your corporate wellness information? Here are five ideas to make your communications more effective and get your employees more engaged.

Start at the Top

Have your CEO author the message. Employees want to hear from the top. If it’s important enough that they should be participating, then it’s important enough to come from the CEO. Include a headshot in the digital message to make it more personal.

Better yet, pull out your mobile phone and shoot an informal video of your CEO sharing why they value corporate wellness, what healthy steps they are taking, and why it’s important that everyone participate – including how it benefits them directly.

Share the written message or video via email. Post it on the internal homepage. You can even share it via social media, if your workplace’s policy allows.

Equip Your Managers

Managers are the ones who can most effectively reach employees. Employees engage with the business through their manager, not the corporate office.

Identify managers responsible for two or more employees, enlist them as advocates, and equip them with talking points and resources. Ask them to check if employees have the information they need about your wellness program and provide resources for your employees to learn about their wellness benefits.

If you have team wellness challenges, ask them to get their team involved. Then, follow up with a short survey to capture their feedback on how things went and what else they might need.

Get Graphic

The human brain takes in visual information much more quickly than plain text. Researchers found it takes the brain as few as 13 milliseconds to process an image. Simple charts or infographics are a great way to get attention and communicate a lot of information quickly.

Ask your wellness vendor if they have visual aids you can use, or whip up a few graphics in Canva or Pixlr. Show your employees with a few simple graphics what your program offers and the results it’s driven so far.  

Get Input

Ask for input into your wellness program, and listen to it. Set up channels where employees can participate, such as an online poll, email survey, webinar, town hall, internal homepage with comment section, or even a suggestion box. Post employee questions and your leaders’ answers so they can see the insights their questions produced. Most importantly, show them how you’ve incorporated their thoughts into the program design – make it their program, not yours.

Tell Employee Stories

Recognize employees who achieve their wellness goals, and share their stories. We love to hear about our colleagues, and it will bring your wellness program to life. Communicating real world examples helps others envision themselves doing the same thing. Social media can be a great channel to publish photos and short updates on corporate wellness initiatives.

It may be hard to imagine, but the numbers don’t lie: 40% of your employees have no idea that your company has a wellness program. Simply getting the word out more effectively could boost participation.

Whether your wellness program is new or has been around for years, map out a communications plan and experience how a fresh approach can capture attention and drive engagement.

Zipongo is a digital nutrition platform that empowers you to improve what your employees eat.  Food is the single most foundational element of health, and an important driver of sustained engagement and impact across all of your key programs. Combined with increased productivity and retention, that’s why hundreds of benefits leaders, wellness platforms, and health plans already use Zipongo.

Discover how nutrition is essential component for a corporate wellness program to be truly effective, and explore our Why Nutrition? landing page.