This Is How Incentives Impact Employee Motivation

In the last few years, the use of financial incentives has increased manifold to encourage employee involvement. And this is all the more true when it comes to health and wellness programs. Global findings suggest that staying in a closed office space can increase stress, cause depression, and impact a person’s overall wellbeing. Research conducted via surveys shows that most renowned companies worldwide now offer cash rewards to employees to enhance their enrolment in wellness programs. This would not just ensure that the employers are in great shape physically, but also mentally.

How Are Incentives Linked With Motivation?

Almost 40% of companies even extended such incentives towards employees’ spouses, which was 34% in 2013. If you see carefully, the popularity of these incentives even results in increased program participation. One must remember that participation by itself does not equate to long-term goals. This includes goals like weight loss measures, fighting cancer or diabetes, or even quitting smoking or drinking.

Participation will not always produce the ‘desired outcomes. Most people often lose their motivation and get back to their old behaviors after receiving an incentive. So it’s nothing uncommon to find smoking making a return or digging into rich carbohydrates and fats, resulting in typical weight gain. Results are thankfully better when you combine incentive programs with ‘evidence-based services’ and ‘behavior-change clinical approaches.’

What Role Do Incentives Play?

In common parlance, incentive strategies, which you can divide into four categories. Rewarding individuals after they have enrolled or participated in wellness activities or programs, like employee challenges, is motivating.

Companies can reward individuals for health-based improvements, like reducing BMI and getting back to the normal range or quitting smoking for a long period. Rewarding participants who reveal true progress made towards general health goals after completing the plan components. One could also try penalties to motivate employees. For instance, employees who exhibit wrong behavior might have to pay higher premiums or deductibles for ‘biometric values.’ Besides penalties for past behavior, punishments can also apply for refusing to participate in the current range of programs.

It is not to say that employees only show any of the options mentioned above. Still, there are situations where they can pursue even a couple or more, and variations in each category are common. However, one cannot deny that either in a few circumstances, employees participate whole-heartedly in the wellness program, but no positive outcomes happen.

Extrinsic Vs. Intrinsic Motivators

While intrinsic motivation depends on an individual’s core beliefs and values, extrinsic motivation is about rewards gained after being gifted by oneself or others to reach a target. An intrinsic motivator would align with the person’s desires to live their life. For instance, a working mom decides to lose weight to gain more energy for the tasks at hand. On the other hand, the positive outcome of the reward in an extrinsic motivator wouldn’t last long. This is because the person is likely to deviate from the behavior after a point in time. One example would be to lose weight for an upcoming event or to earn a financial incentive.

Motivation Crucial To Produce Desired Behavioural Changes

Incentives tend to motivate employees or lead them to complete tasks like assessing health risks or making subtle behavioral changes. So, they don’t require any extrinsic or external motivator for being engaged. Only when the engagement is long-term can people develop the interest or desire to better their wellbeing.

For instance, an employee might participate in a coaching program to elicit desired behavioral responses for winning a financial award. Probably, they might continue to participate even after the initial phase once they have experienced a somewhat fulfilling interaction with the concerned health coach.

The ability to shed the extra weight may act as a reinforcement to sustain similar desired behaviors that would keep off the weight. However, one cannot say that the same holds true in all situations. This is because someone who views the weight loss session as nothing but earning a reward might fall back into the weight-gain trap. No wonder an employee who gets the same rewards as their peers will be willing to engage in more home-related tasks with their family members.

Hence, it is important to resort to personalized health coaching. This would help at least for assisting in the emergence of sustained behavioral patterns.