Job Satisfaction, Equity Characterize 2022 Wellness Program Design

Large employers are investing more in their wellness program design in 2022 and their programs revolve around hybrid work environments, job satisfaction, and equity, the Business Group on Health found in a survey.

The 2022 Employer-Sponsored Health & Well-being Survey drew its data from 166 companies spanning from mid-sized to jumbo-sized. Respondents could access the online survey in December 2021 and January 2022.

“Employers are facing a unique set of challenges as employees return and re-adjust to a more traditional work environment, and we’re encouraged to see so many employers, including Fidelity, evolving their employee well-being programs to address the needs of their workers,” said Robert Kennedy, health and welfare practice leader at Fidelity Workplace Consulting. 

Most employer respondents (83 percent) agreed that employee well-being—specifically, mental health, physical health, and work-life balance benefits—would take a central place in their strategies, at least in the short term.

Trends in wellness programming budgets relied mainly on the size of the employer. Large employers boosted their wellness programming budgets over their 2021 budgets by around $500,000 on average. Also, mid-sized companies with less than 5,000 employees budgeted for higher spending per employee. 

But the overall trend in wellness program spending decreased from 2021 to 2022.

The average wellness program financial incentive rose to $823 in 2022, although the median incentive did not change. Around a quarter of employer respondents (22 percent) leaned on economic incentives or disincentives to promote coronavirus vaccinations among their workforces.

“As people return to work in this new landscape, employers will be flexible and empathetic in supporting them as much as possible,” said Ellen Kelsay, president and chief executive officer of Business Group on Health. 

“Every C-suite executive now fully realizes the correlation of their workforce’s health and well-being to the overall success of their business. In the coming year, Business Group on Health will continue to gauge tried-and-true health and well-being initiatives as well as innovative and emerging trends, to help inform the future.”

Employers are considering a couple of new factors in designing their wellness programs.

First, the survey documented a shift to a hybrid work model. In 2022, six out of ten employers stated that most of their employees would engage in a hybrid work model, working part of the week from home and part of the week on-site. This trend, which is a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic, will impact wellness program benefits.

Second, in addition to the physical work environment, another noteworthy trend was employers’ increased emphasis on job satisfaction. Over half of employers stated that job satisfaction will be a key part of their wellness programming in 2022. This is 1.5 times the share of employers that had this focus in 2021.

And finally, most large and mid-sized companies are incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts into their wellness program designs. This includes gearing the programs toward underrepresented groups, issuing diversity, equity, and inclusion standards for their wellness programming partners, and evaluating their programs for inclusivity.

This survey data comes as employers begin to understand and embrace their role in addressing employees’ social determinants of health factors and collecting data on social determinants of health that can assist in advancing health equity in their wellness programs and overall culture.

“As organizations around the globe continue to invest in these programs and expand them to include a greater number of workplace benefits, we’ll continue to see corporate well-being programs playing an important role in business strategy and overall workforce management,” Kennedy projected.