employee engagement: the new currency

of wellness

contentsSelf-Renewing Employee Wellness: Turning Engagement Upside Down ......3

The Science of Motivation: How Self-Renewing Behaviors Work .....................4

The Nuances of Rewards and Recognition ..............................................................6

In Action: Self-Renewing Engagement ......................................................................6

The Tools of Self-Renewing Employee Engagement ............................................7

An Experiment of One ....................................................................................................7

OLDNEWWAS MEASURED

YESTERDAY, ROI

in old-fashioned

DOLLARS & CENTS.

CAN BE MEASURED INTODAY, ROI

personal engagement sparked by

COMMON SENSE.

THE CURRENCY OF EMPLOYEE WELLNESS

2 employee engagement: the new currency of wellness

FROM TOP-DOWN ...01

EMPLOYER-DIRECTED

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATORS

HEALTH, COST, PRODUCTIVITYBENEFITS

+ =

TO EMPLOYEE-DRIVEN02

+EXTRINSIC MOTIVATORS

SELF-DIRECTED

HEALTH, COST, PRODUCTIVITYBENEFITS

+ INTRINSIC MOTIVATORS =

THE EVOLVING MODEL OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

NEWTHE CURRENCY OF EMPLOYEE WELLNESS self-renewing employee wellness:

turning engagement upside downWhat’s the most common corporate wellness challenge? 63% of all employers say it’s employee

engagement, according to Healthiest Employers.1 In fact, on average only half of eligible employees

participate in health risk assessments like biometric screenings and fewer than 20% of eligible

employees participate in subsequent health interventions, according to RAND.2

The conclusion is unavoidable: Top-down wellness initiatives driven primarily by a rational assessment

of health status plus anticipated cost and productivity benefits don’t engage and motivate many

employees for very long. At best, a few employees engage initially, lose interest quickly and retreat,

sending wellness leaders scrambling for the next big idea.

ultimately, engagement becomes its own reward— truly the new currency of employee wellness.

1 Healthiest Employers, “How To Become A Healthiest Employer,” HR.com, March 2012.2 RAND, “Review of the U.S. Workplace Wellness Market,” 2012.

This pattern reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of

employee engagement and, indeed, human motivation.

Engagement is not about getting as many employees

as possible to do what you think they should do.

Instead, employee engagement should be seen as a

self-renewing cycle that occurs one employee at a time.

This approach flips the employer’s role from directive to

supportive, allowing employees to set their own health

priorities and choose personalized activities that support

those priorities. Carefully chosen extrinsic motivators

encourage and reward their participation, encouraging

progressively deeper, self-reinforcing participation.

Ultimately, engagement becomes its own reward—truly

the new currency of employee wellness.

3© 2013 hubbub

the science of motivation: how self-renewing behaviors workResearch into cognitive evaluation theory (CET) and self-determination theory (SDT), models first

described by Dr. Edward Deci and Dr. Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester, has shaped how the

wellness profession understands what motivates employees to make sustainable lifestyle changes.

Deci and Ryan view all motivation as the result of basic

and universal psychological needs:

Autonomy or self-determination—the sense that we’re

choosing our own path

Competency or self-efficacy—the sense that we’re

capable of accomplishing what we set out to do

Relatedness—the sense that we’re part of a bigger

community that respects and appreciates us

In the CET/SDT models, people are not passive or reactive,

and they are not simply products of their environment. They

are biased toward learning and development, and toward

participating in activities that increase their feelings of

personal fulfillment and self-actualization.

Motivation can be intrinsic—we want to do an activity

because it’s inherently satisfying or interesting—or extrinsic,

meaning that we want to engage in an activity to achieve or

avoid a particular outcome. That outcome might be tangible,

like a payment we receive for completing a health risk

assessment. It may be intangible, like the compliments we

get from neighbors after a hard weekend of landscaping.

THE MOTIVATION SPECTRUM

AMOTIVATIONNo intention to

participate; does not meet psychological needs, outcome is

not important

EXTERNAL REGULATION

Participation is passive reaction

to external prompt

INTROJECTIONParticipation motivated

by self-esteem or desire for

others’ approval

IDENTIFICATIONParticipation motivated

by personal belief in

value of activityINTEGRATIONParticipation fulfills

psychological needs for self-direction, self-efficacy and

relatedness

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Participation motivated by inherent

satisfaction from activity

EXTERNAL MOTIVATION

4 employee engagement: the new currency of wellness

THE MOTIVATION SPECTRUM

3 Social Statistics 2.0, an ongoing survey of adult Internet users, August 2013.

INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Motivation is the sum of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. While many wellness professionals3

view extrinsic motivation as less effective or desirable than intrinsic motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic

motivation are both effective in shaping behavior and sustaining long-term change. Indeed, most of

the things that people do in their personal and professional lives provide fairly low levels of inherent

satisfaction. Such activities are primarily extrinsically motivated and continue reliably without ever

progressing to intrinsic motivation.

Brushing your teeth is a good example. Roughly 90% of

Americans brush their teeth once or more daily. Some people

are intrinsically motivated: they simply love that minty fresh

feeling. However, external motivation is more compelling for

far more individuals; they brush every day primarily

because they’ve internalized the value that dental hygiene

is worthwhile and they wish to avoid the dentist’s drill.

Most jobs would not be performed without extrinsic

motivation. Even people who love their jobs find some

tasks unpleasant and unsatisfying. They do them anyway

because it makes other outcomes possible, like a regular

paycheck or spending time on tasks they very much enjoy.

The most successful extrinsic motivators nurture feelings

of self-direction, self-efficacy and group approval. The least

successful motivators undermine those needs. For example,

allowing employees to choose from a menu of five different

wellness activities is likely to reinforce self-direction and

self-efficacy more than pressuring all employees to

participate in a company-wide yoga program.

Extrinsic motivators that reinforce these values also increase

the likelihood that over time individuals will internalize the

activity and become more intrinsically motivated to continue

doing it. It’s important to note that when the right mix

of extrinsic motivators is present, individuals will engage

in things that they may never become truly intrinsically

motivated to do—and they’ll do them with a positive attitude.

Extrinsic rewards can increase or decrease intrinsic

motivation, but they generally can’t make an unattractive

activity appealing. Consider a colonoscopy. The Centers

for Disease Control suggest that everyone should get a

colonoscopy at age 50. Only 60% do so. For them, peace of

mind and the opportunity for early detection are effective

motivators. For everyone else, the negative aspects of the

procedure outweigh those rewards.

WHY IT MATTERS Finally—and importantly for

employers—motivation research generally suggests that

rewards for simple participation may reduce intrinsic

motivation if those rewards do not in some way increase

self-efficacy, self-direction or a sense of community.

Motivation is uniquely individual. While basic psychological

needs may be universal, the ways in which people feed

those needs are not.

They vary by personality, temperament, social context,

and societal and organizational culture. The same motivator

can produce a strong sense of community support for

one person and passive resentment in another.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:A SELF-RENEWING MODEL

CHALKS UP

SUCCESSES

SETS AND CONTINUOUSLY

UPDATES GOALS

SHARES TIPS, LESSONS LEARNED,

AND PATS ON THE BACK

BUILDS ON SMALL WINS

self-determination

self-efficacy

extrinsic incentives

sense of community

5© 2013 hubbub

the nuances of rewards and recognition

Enabling employees to

gravitate to individually

meaningful incentives

and rewards is a key

element of self-renewing

engagement. Defining

recognition strictly as

one-size-fits-all public

fanfare or any other

single motivator overlooks

nuances that can actually

undermine intrinsic and

extrinsic motivation.

For example, one employee

may love posting activity

updates on social media or

in a community forum,

eagerly awaiting responses.

The same public praise

may feel like nothing but

pressure to another employee.

Achieving a personal best may

motivate one employee, while

departmental competitions

may be a real turn-off for

another. One employee

may cringe at the sound

of her name at a monthly

recognition event, while

another may aggressively

rack up points on a leader

board. And yet others may

be perfectly happy to quietly

bask in the glow of feeling

great about themselves.

in action: self-renewing engagementEngagement is its own reward. As employees select and complete the

activities and challenges that align most closely with their own priorities

and preferences, it’s likely that more of their motivation becomes intrinsic.

In a typical scenario, employees might check in on average twice a day

with a community of 60 or more coworkers, log nearly 20 miles of

exercise every month and lose an average of three pounds a month.

As they complete one challenge, they kick off another, completing over

20 challenges on average.

This result demonstrates how powerful this new model of self-renewing

engagement can be.

CHALKS UP

SUCCESSES

SETS AND CONTINUOUSLY

UPDATES GOALS

SHARES TIPS, LESSONS LEARNED,

AND PATS ON THE BACK

BUILDS ON SMALL WINS

IN ACTION:SELF-RENEWING ENGAGEMENT

chooses personalized challenges and goals

logs nearly 20 miles of exercise monthly

connects online to 60+ friends

completes 20+ challenges,loses 3 lbs./month, earns rewards

6 employee engagement: the new currency of wellness

the tools of self-renewing employee engagementSuccessful corporate wellness initiatives depend upon the careful

selection of tools to support a self-renewing cycle of increasingly

deeper employee engagement.

EXAMPLES OF SUCH TOOLS INCLUDE:

Motivational interviewing techniques that help establish individual health priorities

and next steps

Gamification platforms that allow users to choose or self-design their own activities,

which challenge and provide reward elements like badges, points and leader boards

Recognition, rewards and incentive programs that provide a mix of tangible

and intangible, financial and non-financial benefits

THE MOST EFFECTIVE TOOLS SHARE SEVERAL CHARACTERISTICS:

They nurture common psychological needs like self-determination, self-efficacy,

self-esteem and approval by others. They recognize that employees are not

exclusively “coin-operated” but in fact are motivated by multiple factors.

They help identify and target individual employee values associated with at least

a tiny spark of positive, volitional motivation—the essential building blocks on

which the rest of the house is built.

They provide flexibility and make it easy for employees to select or design

activities or challenges meaningful to them, key motivational factors identified

in Dr. Abraham Maslow’s research.

They make it easy for employees to chain together small wins that build on existing

competencies, an effective behavior change technique identified by Dr. B.J. Fogg.

They support interaction and feedback with the individual employee’s community

of interest, tapping the group influences identified by Dr. Nicholas Christakis’ and

Dr. James Fowler’s social network research.

They provide a mix of recognition, rewards and incentives that allow employees

to select what’s meaningful to them and increase their sense that they’re part

of a community that respects them.

an experiment of one

Traditionally, employers

have predetermined the

wellness activities available

to employees. For example,

a very common wellness

menu offers employees

onsite gym access, group

fitness classes and nutrition

lunch-and-learns. Yet this

one-size-fits-all approach

misses the boat entirely for

someone who would rather

get more exercise via local

geocaching adventures or

more nutrition education via

an organic cooking class at

the local farmer’s market.

Tools and platforms that make

it easy for employees to design

their own challenges and

activities help power

self-renewing engagement,

giving employees the

flexibility to choose activities

and external motivators

that align well with their

individual personalities,

temperaments and priorities.

7© 2013 hubbub

hubbub is a technology-driven wellness solution that uses social circles, the love of the game, a turnkey incentive engine, and the quickest health quiz on the planet to inspire employees to get moving and live healthy.

for more information, go to hubbubhealth.com/employers

© 2013 hubbub

Printed on recycled paper for a healthier planet.