These days, creating the optimal wellness program for your company will likely entail the partnership of multiple corporate wellness vendors. Choosing the right partnerships is key to the success of your initiatives and the satisfaction of your employees.
How to pick the right corporate wellness vendor
While budget will almost always be a driving priority, there are other considerations you should keep in mind as you put together an effective corporate wellness vendor plan. Here’s what to consider as you research your options.
What do your employees want from workplace wellness programs?
Before you can even begin the investigative process with corporate wellness vendors, you need to better understand the interests and motivators of your workforce. Asking employees what they want will likely result in an overwhelming amount of ideas and information.
However, you’ll find commonalities across the feedback and through a vetting process, you’ll find the top needs and priorities of employees. Narrowing down those priorities will help you know where to begin and have greater confidence that once you make a choice, the employees will be excited to take advantage.
Try asking your employees the following questions:
- What corporate wellness vendors would you like?
- How often would you use this vendor?
- Are you more interested in fitness benefits or wellness benefits?
Psst...remember that you can always refer your company to sign up for ClassPass!
What are your expectations for wellness platforms?
Again, this will take some research before entering the vendor communication stage. As a company, and an individual using the wellness program, what are those expectations? What are you hoping to provide and what are you hoping the results are? Understanding the answers to these questions will help you determine what kind of solution you need—whether it’s a single, comprehensive service or a combination of several offerings. Know what you want to achieve before you find the corporate wellness vendors to help you achieve it.
We recommend being upfront with vendors as you go through the vetting process. If you have specific expectations of platforms, ask them about it! You can use the following questions as a template:
- What locations is the vendor available in?
- If you’re distributed globally, is the vendor available worldwide?
- What pricing packages do you offer?
- What kind of support is available for your clients?
What kind of functionality are you looking for?
You’ll also want to get a sense of how technology-heavy you want to get. How involved will the services be and what will be required from the employee? Do you want simplicity and autonomy, or do you want metrics and trackability? This will tie back to the specific goals of your wellness program.
How will you measure success?
Leadership must determine what they’ll consider a successful program and how it will be measured. As you speak with vendors, get a sense of how they measure use and success—or if it isn’t through the solution itself, determine how you intend to do that as an organization on your own. Metric-gathering and analysis must be a top priority.
How customizable and flexible is the wellness solution?
Every company has a unique set of characteristics that influences the needs and wants of its employees. Some corporate wellness vendors will only provide a “take it as it is” solution, while others may operate on providing variety and selection. Remember who you're serving: your employees. Programs and solutions that don’t start with the personal interest of the employees it’s meant for won’t get traction. Make sure you’re clear on your competing demographics and needs so that the offerings you provide can serve the greatest number of people. Most times, working with a vendor that offers customization and choice is the best way to do just that.
Executing an effective corporate wellness plan takes research, planning, and preparation. Understand your priorities, what you want to achieve, and how you plan to measure that success; doing so will ensure you find the right partners for your wellness initiatives.
The ClassPass Corporate Wellness Program is as easy for your team to manage, track, and monitor usage as it is for employees to feel their best. Ready to transform your corporate wellness programs? Start here.
How to get leadership to sign-off?
Wellness programs often require an investment of time and money. Getting leadership to see the vision of your proposed wellness program can be a difficult hurdle to get over. Unless you have a leadership team that is already committed to wellness, it will be important to help your leadership understand the value — both tangible and intangible — of a formal wellness program. Leverage examples of successful programs by companies in the same industry, help leadership become aware of leading health concerns facing your workforce and point to the proven bottom-line benefits that a company can enjoy. As you speak with leadership, help them understand how the proposed wellness initiatives can support the mission and vision of the company.
