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If you’re looking to reduce health care costs and improve employee engagement and productivity, then you should be thinking about investing in employee wellness software.
A top employee wellness platform will allow you to encourage employees to develop and maintain healthy habits while also creating a culture of employee health and well-being.
Below is our research into the space including the benefits, pitfalls, and ROI associated with employee wellness software, along with our research into the best vendors in the space. Good luck and let us know if we’re missing anything!
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11
Vendors Reviewed
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
- Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it. This usually means getting a demo by a senior executive (their CEO, head of product, etc), and/or using the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best in class offering.
- User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers.
- Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.
- Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need.
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
In this guide you'll find
Featured in
Top Employee Wellness Technologies
Here are the best corporate wellness providers per our research into the space.
Why we love it
:
Powered by Humana, a Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO and PFFS organization, Go365 is a platform for monitoring workspace health and wellness. Notably, Go365 is deeply rooted on behavioral economics and actuarial science.
Go365
Review:
Humana's Go365 product allows companies large and small to offer a robust corporate wellness program to their employees via a friendly and intuitive employee experience. Employees can participate in various wellness activities from steps challenges to guided meditations. These activities earn rewards, which can be redeemed for gift cards, donations to your favorite charity, or discounts on fitness equipment.
With Go365, employees can experience improvements in their well-being by engaging with the program’s wellness content, assessments, and activities. If you're looking for a holistic corporate wellness offering, check out Go365.
Go365
Customers:
Hillsborough Country Public Schools, WorldVentures.
Go365
Stats:
- 22% decline in healthcare costs
- 28% higher fruit and veggie intake
- 25% employees increased weekly workouts
- 55% fewer unhealthy days
Note: The above stats were derived from a recently completed five-year study where risk factors among Go365 members were analyzed. The study examined data from more than 10,000 Humana employees over the course of five years.
Go365
Pricing:
The pricing of Go365’s plans and services isn’t listed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies across different industries can use Go365 to improve their culture with employee wellness initiatives.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
WebMD One is the well-being software solution by WebMD Health Services, which is the renowned publisher's arm for designing health programs for employers.
WebMD One
Review:
WebMD ONE is a comprehensive corporate wellness program. Their personalized assessment tools and health coaching programs, automated reporting, apps & device integration, challenges, rewards, and customized communications guide consumers to smarter decisions, improved outcomes, and real behavior change.
WebMD One
Customers:
WebMD One
Stats:
- 3.6M coaching sessions and counting
- 394K pounds lost by participants
- 2.7K hour per night increase in sleep
- 2.5M more minutes of exercise per day
- 8.4K fewer cigarettes per day
WebMD One
Pricing:
The pricing of WebMD ONE’s plans and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote according to the size and needs of your business.
Best For
Companies with more than 1000 employees.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Limeade is the developer of a range of mobile-first solutions. Of course, one of these is aimed at supporting employee well-being, but they also have tools for engagement, inclusion, and experience. Their platform combines all of these.
Limeade
Review:
Limeade meets employees where they are, on mobile, to encourage a culture of inclusion, wellbeing, and engagement. Specifically, their application can facilitate well-being quizzes, sharing company news, and communications targeted towards specific populations within your workforce. Their platform also allows your organization to execute a rewards and recognition program, steps challenges, mindfulness activities, and can even connect employees with mental health professionals.
Limeade
Customers:
Dr. Oetker, Bosch, Brunswick, Team Health, Synopsys, Cincinnati Children’s, AmTrust Financial.
Limeade
Stats:
- 15+ years of industry leadership and experience
- 2m+ users in 100+ countries
Limeade
Pricing:
The pricing of Limeade’s plans and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote according to the size and needs of your business.
Best For
Large companies looking to improve their corporate culture, drive up retention rate and business outcomes through emphasis on employee wellness.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
The Virgin Pulse platform integrates health, wellbeing, safety, and benefits for employees. They boast a 95% client retention rate and offer their software and services in multiple countries.
Virgin Pulse
Review:
Over 3,000 companies use Virgin Pulse to drive positive change in their workplace through a mobile first solution that encourages employees to take care of their nutrition, sleep, exercise, financial health and more. Virgin Pulse teamed up with another leader in the wellness space Redbrick Health in 2018.
Virgin Pulse
Customers:
Medtronics, BBVA, Brown-Forman, Central Michigan University, Movement Mortgage.
Virgin Pulse
Stats:
- 4,000 clients (84 of which are global fortune 500)
- 95% client retention rate
- 87% of members say virgin pulse changed their lives
Virgin Pulse
Pricing:
The pricing of Virgin Pulse’s plans and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote according to the size and needs of your business.
Best For
Companies looking to improve their corporate culture and health outcomes with health risk assessments, challenges, and employee benefits portal.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
As in its name, Wellable helps your employees stay well through research-based health content, fitness classes, health coaching, and more.
Wellable
Review:
Wellable provides innovative wellness solutions and research-based health content that’s further complemented with on-site activities and services, including fitness classes, health coaching, and more. With Wellable, companies can create wellness initiatives that meet their needs while providing a rich experience for employees.
Wellable
Customers:
Kaspersky, Kronos, Mimecast, United Way, Dignity Health, Town Squared.
Wellable
Stats:
Wellable
Pricing:
Employers can choose between self-directed or full-service pricing models for an annual program or single challenge:
- For an annual program, the pricing for the self-directed model is based on the number of user accounts, while the pricing for a full-service package is based on the number of eligible employees
- For a single challenge, the pricing for all single challenges, including self-directed and full-service options is based on the number of user accounts.
Notes:
- Health Content can be added to any annual program based on the number of users or eligible employees of your self-directed or full-service program respectively.
- Wellness Services can be added to any program on an ala carte basis.
- Smoking Cessation can be added on a per-user basis.
You may use Wellable’s price calculator to estimate your costs or get a detailed price quote by contacting their sales team.
Best For
Companies of all sizes across the world looking to improve corporate culture with employee wellness initiatives.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Wellsteps is a cost-effective way of improving employee health. Their platform has been named as the best in the US by the C. Everett Koop National Health Awards.
WellSteps
Review:
WellSteps is a wellness solution for companies of all sizes. It incorporates research-based wellness programs and solutions to optimize your worksite and help your employees adopt and maintain healthier lifestyles. With WellSteps, employees earn reward points they can redeem towards their insurance payments by competing in fitness challenges, eating right, generally taking better care of their health.
WellSteps
Customers:
Ohio University, DFW, Great-west healthcare, Chemtura, SHRM, Harvard Medical School.
WellSteps
Stats:
WellSteps
Pricing:
WellSteps can train your staff to use the WellSteps platform. Once trained, you can offer start offering wellness programs starting from $.50 per participant per month. Contact WellSteps sales’ team for more details.
Note: WellSteps has an ROI calculator on their website to show you how much you can save using their platform.
Best For
Companies of all sizes looking to implement employee wellness programs.
Worth Checking Out:
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Best Practices
Here are some best practices to follow in order to avoid the common obstacles that HR teams often struggle with when trying to start a wellness program:
- Secure sufficient funding: You should know how much your program will cost, including expenses from incentives, health screenings, and health coaching, and be sure to secure the budget you need before rolling out the program.
- Administer a baseline survey: Before you decide to implement a wellness program, you should survey your employees to get a better sense of their levels of physical activity, nutrition habits, health risks, and interest in participating in a wellness program.
- Focus on developing healthy habits: Many wellness solutions fail when only focus on improving employee health in the short term. The best way to gain from your program is to help your employees form healthy habits that will last throughout their lives.
- Collect data and evaluate outcomes: In order to understand if your program is actually worth what you’re paying, you need to collect data on your employees to see if the program is having an effect on their health company-wide.
- Communicate: If your employees don’t know about the program, they won’t be able to participate. Use including email, posters, signs, and social channels and other media to communicate about your program early and often. Be transparent about any data you are collecting and any changes to the company that the program will cause to make your employees feel more comfortable with participating.
- Ensure accessibility: You have a diverse corporate population so make sure your program caters to their diverse needs. Try to offer a variety of options that will reach all of your employees regardless of their abilities or schedules.
- Create a wellness team: A successful implementation of your program will be much easier if you have a wellness team to take responsibility for all aspects of your program. You should pull from all levels and departments when creating this team to make sure all employees feel their voice is heard. Having one team to take charge will help you stay organized and help you make sure that all responsibilities do not fall on your HR team.
- Involve senior leadership: When senior leaders of your company set an example by actively embracing a healthy lifestyle and sharing their own health journeys, employees will be more encouraged to participate in the program themselves. Having support from upper-management will also make it easier for you to secure the budget you need.
- Don’t limit your program to physical health: While improving physical health is an important driver for lowering healthcare costs, you should also try to consider financial, emotional, and mental health. All kinds of health contribute to an employee’s ability to perform so it’s important to keep the focus of your program broad.
Best Employee Wellness Platforms
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