The outdated 'one-size-fits-all' method of education-only as the primary means of garnering employee engagement with well-being and clinical management programs, as well as point solutions - will face even greater challenges in 2024. There's long been a desire to deliver more personalized messaging, both to get employees to enroll in such programs, and to keep them engaged once they've "walked through the door."

The good news is that there's a relatively simple and inexpensive way to create and deploy highly personalized and engaging communications - benefits marketing, if you will - faster and easier than ever before.

The power of personalization
Personalization, especially through psychographics, "transcludes" (transcends and includes) basic demographic data. It does so by adding in employees' values, attitudes, world views, beliefs, and preferences. These deeper insights allows for customized messaging that connects on a more meaningful level.

Some years back, our Chief Clinical Officer and I were whiteboarding "member journeys" for high risk, moderate risk, and low risk members. We had put up a year-long set of swimlanes with a series of activities, courses, programs, coaching, and challenges, all wrapped up with a choice of incentives.

We spent several hours refining the timing and extent of the tools and resources we could bring to bear, with a keen view to avoiding an "end-of-program-year rush" to qualify for next year's incentives.

We felt we had done a really good job, and then we had one of those "a-ha" moments where we got excited: "What if we knew an individual's learning and motivational style, up front, and could adapt our program messaging to resonate more deeply with where they're coming from???" We knew that could be a game-changer - and then reality set in - "So, how do we do that?" And, back around 2010, there really wasn't any easy way to do that.

Fast forward to today
Today, the question isn't "how can we do that?" - it's being willing to embrace the change necessary to deliver a set of persona-based messages that actually combine motivational language with educational content to evolve towards a more compelling engagement strategy.

Instead of just telling employees that a program exists, what it includes, and how it works, we can now deliver a meaningful why that increases our chances to inspire them about its potential impact on their well-being. It's about illustrating scenarios of improved health outcomes, security, and overall well-being – framed in the ways they've already decided the world works for them.

Tapping into well-being and communications credits
Adopting a personalized approach involves overcoming change management challenges, including adjustments to job roles, business processes, and technology. The good news is that well-being and communications credits can help cover the investment in - not only the program costs themselves - but also investing in personalized messaging through models like BenefitPersonas™ and Values-Based Communications™.

Change is essential for growth and innovation. The ability of the benefits ecosystem to adapt and expand into personalized psychographics may well become crucial in this rapidly evolving marketplace. Employees are clearly seeking something more meaningful to them in order to engage at the levels necessary to "move the needle." While change isn't always easy, it beats obsolescence that risks stakeholders' relevance and profitability.

Competitive and early-mover advantages
Employers competing for talent can broaden their appeal to prospective workers by touting their more advanced processes and programs for - not just career growth - but personalized, vocational growth. Vendors that upgrade their employee outreach by embracing psychographics will see higher enrollment and engagement rates which, in turn, will become increasingly important in both new employer partnerships, but also in stewardship excellence and improved retention.

The last word
Integrating psychographic personalization into program enrollment and engagement strategies is likely to become table stakes in the next few years. It's a sophisticated approach that will reward early adopters and confer substantial rewards on those who lead the way.

~ Mark Head
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