working well – Workforce

April 8, 2020June 29, 2023

Remote workers aren’t lazy. They’re humans responding to a crisis

If remote employees aren’t living up to productivity expectations right now, employers shouldn’t immediately jump to “slacking off” as the reason.

Not only is this skewed worldview insulting to employees, but this degree of virtual micromanagement is insensitive to remote workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Also read: Remote Work is About Trust, Not Rules

In fact, studies show that employees are usually more productive at home than in the office. One survey of 1,004 full-time employees across the United States found that on average, remote employees worked 1.4 more days every month, or 16.8 more days every year, than those who worked in an office setting. Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, found similar results in his two-year study about working from home. Remote working made employees more productive and less likely to quit, according to his study.

Yet there are some paranoid managers who envision their remote workers lying on the couch, shirking work and watching trashy daytime TV. This isn’t the reality for most workers in normal times, let alone during a pandemic.

Remote workers aren’t on vacation right now. They’re dealing with the very real consequences of a deadly global outbreak. Most people are quarantining at home (if their job allows), avoiding people as much as they can, staying as safe as possible at the grocery store and home-schooling their children on top of their work and home responsibilities.

Meanwhile, as more companies turn to layoffs and furloughs, even employed people have financial worries. What happens if they lose their job and employer-provided health insurance? What about workers who live paycheck to paycheck and worry about affording rent and food if they get laid off? The vast majority of employees won’t use working from home as an excuse to do less. Instead they’ll do what they can to stay relevant to their employer and not lose their job and their health care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought further responsibilities to many employee populations, like caregivers of children or sick family members. These people don’t have more freedom and free time due to their work-from-home status. According to a survey of 4,293 working parents that was conducted from March 28 through March 30, only 46.23 percent of men and 25.14 percent of women responded that they are able to juggle work and watching children. Even considering this “unequal divide of household labor” and how mothers are impacted most, most fathers are struggling, as well.

Meanwhile, even if someone doesn’t take care of a child or sick family member, they still need to care for themselves. Maintaining one’s mental health is important during a pandemic, whether you simply feel more stressed than usual or have a mental illness that requires treatment and attention.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who may respond more strongly to the stress of the COVID-19 crisis include those who are especially vulnerable to the virus (older people and those with chronic diseases), children and teens, people with mental health or substance abuse issues and caregivers and health care providers who are helping others deal with health issues.

Months before COVID-19 spread to its first victim, I wrote a story for Workforce about presenteeism, and recently on LinkedIn Jude Smith Rachele, co-founder and CEO at management consulting company Abundant Sun Ltd, commented on the story. She made an astute observation concerning COVID-19 and presenteeism.

“[It] seems the world has gone bonkers about sick leave and time off from work. I’m hoping despite what we are facing that many people STILL have paid vacation leave due to them. This work at home thing — and this even more ever-present ‘digital presenteeism at work’ — may make us forget that we can take time off even if we or those around us are not ill. Remember? We are supposed to take holidays [and] vacations to refresh,” she wrote.

This is a great comment, and not something I’ve seen a lot from employers. I understand that businesses as well as individuals are suffering right now. I’m not suggesting that companies should shift all focus from operations to comforting employees. But there needs to be a balance.

Rather than expecting employees to be 100 percent productive all the time and expecting them to not take any time off unless it’s for the “right reasons,” employers also need to show sympathy to their workforces right now. People aren’t robots. They respond to the world around them. What we’re going through now with COVID-19 is anxiety-provoking at best and life-destroying at worst.

Several months ago I interviewed Morgan Young, vice president of client services, employee benefits at Holmes Murphy, and what she said about productivity expectations is especially relevant now.

“You can acknowledge that fact that people are going to have struggles in their life and nobody is going to be at peak performance 100 percent of the time, and that’s OK. Employers can have a healthy conversation about that and know that, ‘If I can get [employees] through the valleys they have and back to their peak, we’re doing great,’ ” she said.

March 4, 2020June 29, 2023

Don’t encourage obsessive health behavior in your employees

There’s a difference between forming a healthy habit and developing an obsession. Sometimes I wonder if individuals or corporate wellness marketers realize this difference.

Helping employees sleep better is a lifestyle change workplace wellness has taken on, but simply strapping on a sleep-tracker might not be your best bet to catch more ZZZs. In fact, for some people it may actually make their sleep worse. The New York Times looked into this phenomenon in July 2019 in the story “The Sad Truth About Sleep-Tracking Devices and Apps.”

Personal tech columnist Brian X. Chen tracked his sleep using an Apple Watch and some software downloaded on his phone. He shared his own experience in this column and backed it up with research from Rush University Medical College and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

“In their study, the researchers warned that sleep-tracking tech could provide inaccurate data and worsen insomnia by making people obsessed with achieving perfect slumber, a condition they called orthosomnia,” Chen wrote. Health apps don’t necessarily make people healthier, and this was just the latest research to show that.

addressing behavioral health workplace — For some people, trying to “hack” their sleep, health or productivity can lead to stress or anxiety.

The story wasn’t completely negative and did also share some potential positives of certain sleep-trackers. While some users get in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and obsessively checking their sleep patterns, others do say that using these apps genuinely helped them.

Still, this measured, balanced perspective was a valuable, realistic look at the potential behind this technology versus excessively optimistic marketing copy. The bottom line for users of sleep tech was this: “Sleep-tracking apps and devices can be useful for getting a broad look at your sleep, but people should resist drawing conclusions about their sleep health.”

Just as there’s a name for people obsessed with getting perfect sleep, there’s also an eating disorder in which people are so obsessed with being healthy, that it makes them unhealthy. It’s called orthorexia, and it’s something we see in the wellness influencer community. What I wonder is if we also see it in the workplace wellness community.

Also read: Eating disorders belong in your workplace behavioral health strategy

Psycom.net notes some of the problems it causes, including malnutrition, heart conditions and social isolation. “Orthorexia nervosa can easily go unnoticed because it does not seem unusual to be ‘obsessed’ with healthy eating during a time when researchers, health professionals, food marketers, and media seem to constantly change the definition of a healthy diet,” according to the site.

I don’t believe this is out of the realm for employers because of how often organizations try to push wellness programs and the “culture of health” on employees, even the healthy ones who manage their health on their own terms. Not everyone needs to join a workplace program. It’s not necessary for people to do to be good at their job.

Also, for employers who have weight-loss programs at your company, it couldn’t hurt to ask yourself how employees are losing weight. Are they doing it in a healthy way or are they adopting an unhealthy string of diets?

Finally, I’ll mention one more workplace obsession tangentially related to health: productivity. Think about the culture that exists in many organizations in which employees are always trying to do more in a better, faster way, looking for ways to “hack” their productivity and accomplish the most possible. Ultimately, they can’t hit this impossible goal, which can cause stress or anxiety.

This is according to a thought-provoking LinkedIn post last month, and I completely agree. It referenced an article from “The Age” entitled “Why productivity hacks mostly don’t live up to their promise,” which dug into the “success industry” and how it ultimately can’t really make us feel successful. In the end, it makes us feel inadequate and distracted.

The article quoted Vice Media’s Head of Innovation Mark Adams, who has a TED talk about the “cult” of extreme productivity. As you realize there are always more hacks and you can always do more, it creates a sense of chronic anxiety, he said.

“It’s time to take a breath and accept that it is another trap,” he said. “This whole billion-dollar success industry … it doesn’t work.”

I also enjoyed this quote from psychologist Marny Lishman:

“The wellness industry has a lot to answer for – it’s pushing us to be busier, better and constantly dangling the pressure to reach our potential in front of us — when often the answer to wellness resides right inside of us in the enjoyment of the moment… A little chaos, a little adversity, mistakes and failures – all of these help guide us throughout life. We are missing out on these if we are life hacking everything.”

My message to employers based on all this is, rather than constantly trying to push your employees to be better, faster, stronger and healthier, think about the culture you’re creating. Do you have realistic expectations for how productive or health-conscious your employees should be? Or do you expect employees to be like machines that can be constantly upgraded with no impact on their well-being?

February 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Mental health in low-wage workers

employers mental health; Millennials and mental health

Mental illness impacts people from every demographic — be it age group, race, job type, socioeconomic group or gender. Still, despite these similarities, low-wage workers face unique challenges to addressing their mental health concerns.

The Midwest Business Group on Health held a one-day conference on mental health access and stigma in the workplace last week, and one theme that came up in a few presentations was addressing mental health in low-wage workers.

Also read: Mental illness cuts across the workplace hierarchy

Bruce Sherman — chief medical officer at the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, longtime researcher of health issues, and medical director, population health management at Conduent HR Services — did a presentation called “Do wages buy happiness?” He confirmed that, yes, wages are important in the sense that in the past 15 to 20 years, low-wage workers have gotten the smallest pay increases in relation to their income and high-wage workers have gotten the largest pay increases in relation to their income.

Needless to say, wages do matter.

The conversation goes past that, though. Sherman is currently working on a research project on this topic whose results are not public yet, but he also provided a high level overview of some the issues low-wage workers may face with mental health care and access.

Worsening income inequality is one reason these workers may face trouble. Another major reason is productivity demands, Sherman said.

Rising productivity expectations is not a surprise to me. Research for a few recent stories have led me to data points or findings that support this. For example, according to the 2018 European Agency for Safety and Health at Work report, “Managing Performance Enhancing Drugs in the Workplace: An Occupational Safety and Health Perspective,” workers in low-paid jobs that are not protected under standard labor laws may feel increased pressure to hit certain productivity levels, especially since they are increasingly being monitored by their employers. Not wanting to lose a job they rely on, they may turn to smart drugs. “Electronic means of monitoring employees are likely to be accompanied by an increase in the stresses on workers,” the article noted.

Also read: The workplace is not immune to the impact of social determinants of health

Sherman also informed the audience at MBGH’s event that the perception of mental health stigma may vary by socioeconomic status. There are two types of stigma — public stigma refers to discrimination or stereotyping from other people and private stigma refers to people internalizing stigma in a way that eats away at their self-worth. Low-wage workers often have a greater sense of personal stigma with behavioral health disorders, Sherman said.

This type of personal barrier also exists among cost issues and broader, structural barriers, like the lack of available psychiatrists in their insurance network or the the lack of nearby mental health care based on where they live.

Sherman suggested a few types of ways employers can address these issues. Through benefits design, they can consider eliminating mental health copays for employees so they can access behavioral health services. Ocean Spray is an example of a company who has done this, as of July 2019.

In an article Workforce published last March, Sherman gave more suggestions for changes in benefits design to address mental health in low-wage workers:

“Some employers offer hourly employees a half day every year specifically to see their doctor for preventive care services, he said. Other employers offer paid sick leave to all employees, including hourly workers. And other employers have ditched ‘just-in-time’ scheduling practices and opted for fixed work hours for all employees — a perk for hourly employees since variable scheduling limits predictable income for employees living paycheck to paycheck.”

Organizations can also leverage community social services that employees could take advantage of, Sherman said. Further, they can consider what workplace contributors may add to behavioral health problems and address those workplace issues.

Also read: Business group releases employer guide for managing diabetes in low-wage employees

One final suggestion to address mental health in low-wage workers relates to mental health stigma, and I found it rather interesting. Diversity programs could include information that addresses the negative stereotypes associated with mental health problems. I don’t know of any diversity programs doing this, but I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who is involved with a program like that!

Final takeaways from the MBGH conference:

1. Jeremy Nobel — the founder of The Unlonely Project who currently serves on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine — spoke about the negative impact of loneliness on people. He mentioned that LGBTQ+ employees, minorities and people with major illnesses or disabilities are especially susceptible to isolation, and mentioned some activities to help them feel connected.

This was interesting and valuable in its own way, but what I found was missing from his presentation was what external factors might make some of these groups of people feel isolated at work. These are groups of people that are likely to be discriminated against in the workplace compared to straight people, white people or people without disabilities. If your organization is pushing for these deeper connections between people but not addressing the reality that even casual discrimatation or harassment will stifle these connections, can it really address this issue?

2. What’s the actual definition of a crisis? Any time I attend a health-related conference, most every public health issue is deemed a crisis. While I understand some of this mentality, I also wonder how we as individuals, governments or organizations are supposed to pay attention to so many health crises at the same time and give them all the proper attention.

3. I wrote a little about generational stereotypes about mental health last week. My overall argument was that both older and younger employees have health issues, and only paying attention to how millennials or Generation Z “can’t handle stress” or whatever can be infantilizing. Also, it leaves older people out of a very important discussion about finally getting help for mental health issues.

I want to add one more thought. Business/health conferences tend to have an older crowd. That makes sense; they’re professionals who have a deep history in the industry. But where’s the voice of these “young people” who apparently have so many more mental health issues than generations before them?

What I think would be interesting is if there was a way for teenagers or young 20-somethings to share their perspective on the mental health of their generation versus older ones. It could be an opportunity for people in different generations to share their stories. For every “Kids these days get all their self-esteem from social media and that destroys their mental health!” from a 40-something parent, maybe a 16-year-old could clarify how common or uncommon that actually is. It could be an opportunity to address certain generational stereotypes head-on.

February 7, 2019June 29, 2023

Eating Disorders Belong in Your Workplace Behavioral Health Strategy

A while back a source mentioned to me that many people have a limited view on mental illness. It’s depression; it’s anxiety; or maybe it’s PTSD. But there are many more mental illness conditions to address. Like eating disorders.

Eating disorders account for the highest mortality rates of all mental illnesses, with someone dying every 62 minutes as a direct result of an eating disorder. The National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions hosted a webinar a few weeks ago on the topic — perfect timing to educate employers for Eating Disorders Awareness Month in February.

The alliance referred to eating disorders as a “hidden health crisis” in email communications about the webinar and, I have to say, to me this sounds like an accurate way to describe it. I had no idea that they accounted for so many deaths! I also fell victim to the stereotype that the demographic most likely to develop an eating disorder are young, white, rich girls. Really, it cuts across gender, ethnicity and socioeconomics at pretty much the same rates.

Also, as someone whose been writing about benefits, wellness and health for 2 ½ years, this may have been the first time I’ve seen a pitch or an event about eating disorders. Panelist Craig Kramer, global mental health ambassador at Johnson & Johnson, cited some basic numbers on eating disorders:

30 million Americans suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. There are other problems that are still in the process of being officially defined as a disorder. To be clear: An eating disorder is different from dieting or occasionally consuming too much. It’s a clinically diagnosed mental health disorder.
Eating disorders are “the only chronic condition of the young,” with half of sufferers experiencing them by age 14 and 75 percent by age 24. Most people don’t receive treatment, for reasons like stigma and lack of access, and the longer they wait to treat it, the worse it gets. Although people often develop this at a young age, it’s possible for people to still have an eating disorder into old age.
The eating disorder community is underfunded, raising about $10 million per year. Kramer pointed out that an organization dedicated to autism, Autism Speaks, raises $50 million a year.

There are several reasons why this applies to the employer population. One, this is a major mental health consideration, and many employers are saying they want to address mental health issues. Two, employers are developing an affinity for employee health and wellness programs. As they focus on areas like exercise, diet, weight loss, healthy eating initiatives and body mass index, they should also acknowledge that eating disorders are a big deal. Three, people have eating disorders in the workforce but have never received treatment for it.

One of the interesting ideas that came from this webinar was the causation of eating disorders. Alliance President and CEO Mike Thompson brought up an organization that deals with childhood obesity. Through this organization, Thompson learned how sensitive one must be when they talk about weight with children. It’s possible to push a child in the direction of developing an eating disorder if you don’t communicate with them the right way.

This reminded me a Corporate Wellness magazine article about the impact of wellness programs with people suffering from eating disorders. This messaging could be sensitive to other people, not just developing children.

The National Eating Disorders Association was one of the organizations that, three years ago, opposed the EEOC’s “voluntary wellness rules” that allowed for incentives up to 30 percent. According to the association:

“There’s an increasing trend of tying these [wellness] programs to health insurance benefits, with penalties that can mean that the employee ends up paying more money for their health insurance. Additionally, these programs aren’t necessarily just harmless ways to encourage people to be healthier, they could also include office-wide, Biggest Loser-style group weight loss programs that can be triggering for people who struggle with disordered eating.”

The bottom line for employers: Don’t underestimate the impact of an eating disorder, even in a workforce full of adults. Think about eating disorders when you’re crafting messages for weight-loss programs.

When you’re thinking of your population, ask yourself, “How easy it is for them to find an in-network specialist provider who has adequate training, specifically treating this [eating disorder]?” said panelist Jenna Tregarthen, founder and CEO of Recovery Record.

And, as panelist Kristina Saffran, co-founder and CEO of Project Heal, said: “People are not quite sure where [eating disorders] belong. Although there’s a medical and a behavioral component, it is a mental health condition when it comes down to it. So, it should be a part of your behavioral health strategy.”

Other wellness topics on my mind …

Money and motivation: There’s an idea floating around that more money doesn’t motivate people; rather, other rewards like trips or non-cash prizes do. Every time I read or hear that, I have one major reaction, even though I don’t doubt there’s some truth in this. It makes perfect sense in certain contexts. Still, I hope companies don’t use this as an excuse not to give employees standard-of-living raises or to raise minimum wage. Financial wellness is more than just giving employees access to financial advisers or tips on how to save money. It’s also acknowledging that as the cost of living rises, appropriate compensation will help them with basic financial needs.

Hate crimes: Ever since the alleged hate crime against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, I’ve been seeing a lot online about the broader topic. For example, the number of hate crimes in Washington, D.C., have nearly doubled since 2016, with crimes based on sexual orientation accounting for half the city’s total hate crimes in 2018, according to the Washington Post. This is a major public policy and public health issue, but the workplace should take notice, too. I plead with employers — no matter what religion or morality your organization associates with — to think seriously about how your employees’ behavior and workplace policies impact LGBTQ people, especially now. Are you taking incidences of harassment or discrimination against this community seriously?

As columnist and employment law blogger Jon Hyman has written in several posts in Workforce’s blog The Practical Employer, there is no good reason for employers to be anti-LGBTQ rights. Hyman wrote:

“When LGBTQ discrimination becomes universally illegal in the United States (and it will), and history looks back on this era during which this brand of discrimination was questionably legal, on what side of history do you want to be as an employer? The side that condoned (or, worse yet, participated in) this discrimination, or the side that took a stand against it?”

Good news from our columnist!: Jennifer Benz, the Benefits Beat columnist for Workforce magazine, had a major announcement recently. Benz Communications has joined forces with consulting firm The Segal Group. Benz is now the SVP communications leader at Segal Benz. Congratulations, Jennifer!

February 4, 2019June 29, 2023

Workplace Wellness Dominates at Employer Forum

One perk of working in a city as big as Chicago is the conferences, big and small, that provide learning opportunities, ideas, and free coffee and bagels in the morning — especially the everything bagels.

The Midwest Business Group on Health held an employer-only forum on wellness, well-being, and engagement Jan. 23, giving me the chance to hear what employers had to say, chat with my table mates informally about workplace health, and listen to several experts speak on different health-related topics.

Many more ideas came up in the seven-hour forum, but here are the major takeaways that any employer should be aware of:

The Workplace Wellness Debate: Ryan Picarella, president of the Wellness Council of America, spoke about rethinking the approach to workplace wellness and building inspired organizations. Even though health care costs are going up and even though organizations are spending more money on health and wellness than before, population health is declining. Something needs to change in wellness strategy.

One topic he brought up was the debate over the value of workplace wellness. He thinks it’s fun to debate, and I agree! The reputation of workplace wellness goes up and down through phases, from something that’s celebrated to something that gets analyzed in “Workplace Wellness Programs are a Sham” articles. Where does the truth lie?

I happen to land on the more skeptical side of this (as I do with many topics), unlike Picarella who is more optimistic. That aside, one point he brought up is hard to argue: No matter what side of this debate you’re on, what we can agree about is that having happy, healthy employees is important, and something needs to be done to improve employee health.

He gave a lot of behavioral-science-based ideas for improving wellness programs, like by thinking about what motivates people, how environmental factors impact employees, and where employees’ sense of purpose lies. Workplace wellness programs need a foundation that addresses people’s basic needs like food and shelter. A program that addresses something like the importance of nutrition or going to the gym without acknowledging that some people won’t be able to focus on that if their priority is keeping the lights on or putting food on the table? That won’t do.

Another idea he shared is simple, but I find it to be strong. It’s one of those statements that’s obviously true, but I can see organizations and people not following it in practice in more areas of business than just wellness. More wellness activities and programs aren’t always better, he said. Rather than think about adding another thing, and another thing, and another, think strategically about the value add.

Persuasion Vs. Manipulation: Part of this event was a roundtable discussion about the role of trust in wellness. When someone communicates to you, the message may sound like persuasion or as manipulation, depending on how you feel about that person. Even a neutral message can read as manipulation if you do not trust the party providing the information.

Everyone in the room had discussions with their tables and then with the whole room about how to build trust in the workplace.

I love this discussion because there are so many deterrents to trust now, like with data privacy. Bring in wellness programs to that topic, and you get health data privacy, which is something people can be understandably sensitive about.

Without going into too much detail, the audience response here was interesting. One person spoke about employees worried about where their biometric data was going. The organization responded to this concern by making it crystal clear to employees what the company could see, what they couldn’t see, how the data was protected, and what they’d need to talk to the vendor about for answers.

Another audience gem: One person suggested including compassion in your messaging, and making sure your vendors do, too. At the organization, some employees had complaints about how rude a vendor was in answering questions and addressing concerns. The organization responded by reaching out to the vendor with this issue and suggesting that the call center employees go through compassion training.

In conclusion, be direct, transparent, and comprehensive.

Also, my initial big-picture reaction to this issue of trust: Isn’t a certain amount of skepticism healthy? Why should any employee blindly trust their employer? How much trust is realistic for employers to expect?

A piece of career advice that has stuck with me over the years is that even though loyalty and working hard are important, you need to look out for yourself. Don’t blindly believe that your employer always has your best interests in mind. If you feel guilty about quitting when you need to move on with your career, remember that at the end of the day if an employer comes across financial trouble, they may very likely lay you off. It’s just business as usual. Both sides can respect each other but acknowledge the reality that their employment contract is business, not personal.

The idea I’m trying to get across here — as somebody who sees that direct correlation between trust and loyalty — is that employers should want and expect employees to ask questions, be curious and even be skeptical when it comes to workplace matters that concern them. It gives both sides a chance to build a professional level of trust.

What do you think? What wellness-based conversations do you think more employers should be having with one another?

November 28, 2018August 3, 2023

Taming the Wild West of Health Care Navigation

As I prepare to write an in-depth article on health care costs for Workforce’s March-April issue, one of the topics that has come up regularly is health care navigation among employees. That’s what I found the Deloitte “2018 Survey of US Health Care Consumers” to be interesting.

The survey broke down the types of consumers in the health care market as “Wild West” tropes and gave suggestions for how different stakeholders could appeal to these consumer segments. Corny? Sure. But corny little bits like this, at least to me, make it way more fun to write about health care navigation, which can be a pretty dry topic. Personally, I would have gone with the space theme, since my roommate and I have been rewatching the early 2000s futuristic space western drama “Firefly” recently, but the historical Wild West works, too.

Health care navigation is a term that refers to helping patients navigate their way through the often complex health system by giving them as much information as possible to make their own decision and guiding you to the most appropriate health professional. Different patients navigate different ways.

Their four categories Deloitte highlighted were: Homesteaders, who are reserved, cautious and traditionalist; Prospectors, who rely on recommendations from family and friends, find their health care providers to be trusted advisers and are willing to use technology; Trailblazers, who are tech-savvy, engaged in wellness and willing to share data; and Bystanders, who are unengaged, tech-reluctant and resistant to change.

The report compared these groups in several different categories, but the two that stood out to me were shopping behavior and willingness to share health information/data.

Let’s start with health data. The older, poorer groups (bystanders and homesteaders) were least likely to share tracked health information with a doctor or to use technology (like wearables) to monitor fitness. The younger, richer groups (trailblazers and prospectors) had the opposite tendencies toward health data.

Now, I know health companies and employers love have their own incentives to get health data, but, from the point of view of an employee, I would just like to point out that not everyone needs to be reliant on technology to keep track of their health. It’s not how everybody functions best, and trying to push wearables or health apps on someone who’s perfectly content in a more manual workout routine is silly.

Also, the data privacy laws in the U.S. aren’t necessarily promising for consumers yet. People should be able to feel like they have control of what happens with their own personal health data.

Not to say that patients/employees shouldn’t be open with their doctors. But, as I’ve written about before, although it’s great if a company genuinely wants to create a program that will improve the well-being of its employees, it should stay voluntary, and people who don’t participate shouldn’t be shamed, penalized or seen as backward or stubborn.

Shopping behavior is the other area of comparison, and this is the meaty part because it gets to the inherent differences in people and who they trust for advice on something as personal as health — and something as complicated and not-necessarily straightforward as choosing a doctor.

It also taps into the reality of how people in different socioeconomic situations make these decisions. Bystanders, the group with the lowest incomes, consider out-of-pocket costs and convenient hours when choosing a doctor and are less likely to change doctors or health plans even if they’re dissatisfied. Compare them to Trailblazers, the highest income group, who are the most likely to do their research on physicians, hospitals and health insurance companies and are the most likely to change doctors if they’re dissatisfied.

Using basic logic, this makes sense. Having a higher paying job with reliable hours and access to paid time off would make it much simpler to make health care provider changes. Meanwhile, if you’re living paycheck to paycheck and have a busy schedule, basing your medical off out-of-pocket costs and hours is perfectly rational.

The report also gave employers and other stakeholders like health systems and insurers suggestions on how to engage employees/patients in each segment.

Employers can begin to engage the tech-savvy, wellness-engaged Trailblazers by offering virtual health visits and creating a seamless technology experience. For those employees who rely on family, friends and trusted doctors for medical advice, employers can push online patient forums and patient advocacy groups.

I was most interested in stakeholder strategies for the two less tech-centric groups, mostly because those segments seem more like a challenge for employers. Connecting with these people and getting them engaged with health care can happen a number of ways, depending on what their barriers are.

A patient who makes health care decisions based off convenience of hours and location could benefit from having access to a physician or health system that offers off-hour appointments.
A patient who is open to trying tech solutions but still intimidated by it could benefit by having a nurse or clinician spend a few minutes at the end of a doctor’s visit and help set up a virtual appointment, as well as answer any questions about how virtual appoints work, how to access them, etc.
For a patient who isn’t likely to engage with the health care system on their own, stakeholders can address this by involving a caregiver, if applicable, who can encourage this person to get the care they need.
For the least engaged patients, what could also help is if community organizations like their local grocery store or place of worship encourages healthy behaviors. For example, a church could hold a healthy food potluck.

Now, none of these are employer-based actions, but I still think they hold some value to employers. For example, employers may have an employee with a chronic condition whose spouse and kids act as a caregiver; maybe they could consider how to engage spouses and children in chronic-condition care in their health plan. Also, employers could offer healthy good in the office, where employees spend a large chunk of their time, and think about partnering with health systems that offer appointments off-hours.

What do you think? What does your organization do to appeal to employees/patients with different preferences?