Wellness often involves unplugging from the digital world to focus on our physical, mental, and social wellbeing. But, perhaps ironically, creating and maintaining a corporate wellness program is very much a technology-oriented undertaking.
Effective corporate wellness programs comprise an array of software solutions. Each tool or app has a role in helping employees become their best selves and helping employers achieve the many benefits of a corporate wellness program — among them, increased productivity, higher engagement levels, less absenteeism, and lower healthcare costs.
In IT terminology, this collection of tools, apps, and software might be called a “tech stack” or “software stack.” A software stack is like a recipe; if you want it to come out right, you must mix in the right ingredients.
We’ve written extensively about the individual elements to include in your corporate wellness program. For this article, let’s examine how all those elements might come together to form the ideal corporate wellness software stack.
What to Look for in Corporate Wellness Software
Building your wellness program tech stack isn’t just about choosing software categories but identifying the best solutions within those categories. As you evaluate corporate wellness tools for use in your stack, consider factors like:
- Ease of use. Just how steep is the learning curve?
- Implementation. How much time do you really want to spend on the phone with tech support?
- Cost. Does the app offer a bang for your buck?
- User experience (or the “fun factor). Will the tool delight or enrage your employees?
Another question to ask yourself is if you prefer working with all-in-one tools that serve multiple functions or best-in-class solutions built to perform single functions better than anything else. (The HR pros of Reddit and LinkedIn might have some insightful opinions on this one.)
The Formula for Your Corporate Wellness Software Stack
The following is one way to construct your corporate wellness software stack. Think of this as a general template to guide your planning. As you weigh your needs and test software, you and your HR team will likely land on the specific solutions that fit your goals and budget.
HR Tools to Administer and Measure Your Wellness Program
As with numerous HR functions, much of the work of measuring and administering your wellness program can be handled from within your HRMS (human resources management system), also known as an HRIS (human resources information system).
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, an HRIS or HRMS is an all-in-one software platform HR teams use to — among many other things — store, manage, process, and track employee information. Your HRIS can show you if your wellness program is making an impact on absenteeism, healthcare costs, and other critical employee wellness metrics.
Many HRMS platforms are available, offering varying levels of scalability, extensibility, and cost. Some of the more popular ones include Paycom, Workday, ADP, Paylocity, Paycor, and BambooHR.
Many HRMS or HRIS tools can be integrated with a learning management system (LMS), software that delivers and tracks employee training. You can use an LMS to instruct employees on wellness program features and monitor their progress. Leading LMS tools include Cypher Learning, TalentLMS, Absorb, iSpring, and Docebo.
An Employee Wellness Portal or Microsite
Wellness program components can include everything from group challenges to financial counseling to healthy eating guides. For employees, this can be a lot to keep track of, and potentially beneficial resources might fall off their radar.
An employee wellness portal or microsite solves that problem by serving as a one-stop location for everything related to your wellness program. For example, your portal can host a schedule of upcoming wellness events, links to wellness documents and videos, and a FAQ on using program offerings.
Creating an attractive and usable employee wellness portal or microsite doesn’t require any web design expertise. A provider like Flimp can have your wellness portal up and running in a matter of days.
Tools for Employee Engagement and Interaction
Neuropsychology experts say that healthy competition, moving up a leaderboard, and ever-increasing challenges — all gaming hallmarks — trigger the release of pleasing chemicals in the human brain. This phenomenon is a powerful motivator that can be harnessed through the process of gamification.
Corporate wellness programs frequently use gamification to inspire employees to reach their goals. Jockeying for the office high score in steps walked can be quite a rush, after all.
Generalized gamification platforms (which can be used for corporate wellness as well as other business goals, such as sales and training) include Spinify, Bunchball Nitro, and Hoopla.
Many (if not most) corporate wellness platforms also include gamification features. These tools encourage healthy behavior with a range of group and solo challenges targeting not only physical wellness but also mental health, nutrition, and financial wellbeing. As they tackle their challenges, employees strive toward rewards and bragging rights.
Full-featured corporate wellness platforms such as Wellable often serve as centralized hubs for employee wellness. Features can include:
- Communication tools for employees to encourage each other and for leadership to provide updates and announcements.
- Integration with popular fitness trackers.
- Leaderboards and personal progress pages.
- Tools to help HR teams measure wellness program impact.
Corporate wellness platforms can be supplemented with apps or tools focused on individual wellness aspects.
For example, the popular mental health and mindfulness app Headspace offers a Headspace for Employers product that includes mindfulness coaching, therapy, mental health resources, and medication management. Competitor Calm offers a similar product for corporate customers.
Several financial wellness tools are also available for helping your employees do everything from planning a household budget to paying off their student loans.
Tools for Promoting Your Corporate Wellness Program
A strong, multi-channel outreach campaign is the remedy for low wellness program utilization. In other words, if you want your employees to use their wellness program (and therefore justify your company’s investment in it), they need to be constantly reminded it exists, what it includes, and how to use it.
In a recent article, we covered seven ways to promote an employee wellness program. Many of these strategies use tools you probably already have, such as email and mass texting. Other attention-getting approaches include digital postcards, virtual wellness fairs, and the tried-and-true kickoff party.
You can also use your company’s content management system (CMS) to post wellness content to your intranet, consolidating links, documents, infographics, videos, and resources. You can even start a wellness blog and invite employees and outside experts to contribute encouraging and educational content.
Finally, to keep your corporate wellness program from going stale, you’ll need to continually optimize it based on employee feedback. Several survey tools are available for soliciting feedback, some of which you’re probably already familiar with, including SurveyMonkey and Google Forms.
More advanced employee engagement platforms include surveying capabilities along with a host of features for measuring, monitoring, and improving engagement throughout the entire employee experience. Examples include CultureAmp, Qualtrics, and Medallia.
Your Corporate Wellness Software Stack: At a Glance
To summarize, the best corporate wellness programs are built on technological foundations that typically include:
- A human resources management system (HRMS)
- A learning management system (LMS)
- A wellness portal or microsite
- A gamification platform
- A corporate wellness platform
- Additional wellness tools and apps
- Promotional tools such as email, mass texting, and digital postcards
- A content management system (CMS)
- Surveying software or an employee engagement platform
This general framework is highly adaptable. You may not need all these tools, or you may need to add others to fit your unique employee population, budget, and wellness objectives.
As with all business technology, finding the best corporate wellness software stack for your organization requires a continuous process of research, testing, and optimization. Like wellness itself, the journey never ends.
Want to improve your wellness comms? Get advice from HR pros in our upcoming webinar. Sign up here →