$8 billion. That's how much is spent on corporate wellness programs each year in the United States. Sadly, it seems that enormous amount of money doesn't actually improve employee wellness. And it doesn't save companies money either.

Most of the time, when businesses add an extra layer of expense, they do so in order to grow their revenue or reduce costs.

Theoretically, improving the health of employees would lower healthcare costs, reducing expenses, and improve productivity, improving revenue growth. Many companies have spent a lot of money on that theory, but the research shows that idea is nothing more than theoretical.

According to the research, corporate wellness programs:

don't reduce healthcare costsdon't reduce medication costsdon't improve measurable markers of individual healthdo cost a lot of money

Even though many executives know this already, they feel like having an employee wellness offering is necessary for their brand. Since other companies offer it, they do it as well. It's kind of like "keeping up with the Joneses," corporate-style.

Here's why corporate wellness programs don't work, and some thoughts to consider about what might.

Recent Study: Effect of a Workplace Wellness Program on Employee Health and Economic Outcomes

Zirui Song and Katherine Baicker published the results of a recent clinical study in the Journal of The American Medical Association. It's titled Effect of a Workplace Wellness Program on Employee Health and Economic Outcomes.

The full paper and related study details is 123 pages. Not as long as the Meueller report on President Trump, but similar in its findings. Where the Meueller report found no evidence of collusion with Russia, Song and Baicker found no evidence of health benefits from an employee wellness program.

Corporate Wellness Clinical Trial

In the study, Wellness Workdays provided corporate wellness services to a portion of BJ’s Wholesale Club employees who were insured by Cigna. In all, just over 4000 employees were part of the “treatment” group, and another 4000 at other locations served as the control group.

The offerings were pretty standard in the corporate wellness space:

Personal health assessmentsIn-person screeningsEducational modules on nutrition, weight loss, cardiovascular health, stress management, and exercise, usually led by a registered dietitian.

Employees were incentivized with $25-$50 gift cards for completion of various modules.

In all, 35% of the employees participated in at least one educational module. Of those who completed one module, 61% completed three or more.

I'm sure Wellness Workdays, BJs and Cigna all hoped for a positive outcome from the study. It would have made for great marketing. That's not how things worked out, though.

Disappointing Results

In the end, those who participated in the corporate wellness program faired no better in

measurable health outcomeshealthcare spendingmedication costs

Most fascinating to me, though, was that participants' perception was that their health improved, even though it didn't.

United Healthcare came to similar conclusions in a 2017 survey. They found that 60% of employees who had access to a corporate wellness program believed the program had a positive impact on their health, even though the programs don't have much of an impact on health.

When it comes to making healthier choices, our brains have a funny way of believing we're doing better than we actually are.

Of course, some corporate wellness companies will look at the results of the study and say, “Wellness Workdays just don’t know how to do it right. We have a better offering.” They might think they have a better approach to nutrition or exercise.

Or, they'll reason that "The problem isn't the programs; it's the participation. We just need more people to show up for seminars and screenings."

The way I see it, you either need to find employees who love seminars,