Sales incentives are a mainstay of many businesses: the right "carrot" often motivates employees to sell more. What about encouraging employees to be more healthy, so they -- and your business -- can enjoy lower health care costs? British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin Group, thinks it could work and has come up with a playbook for business owners to make it happen.

The corporate health improvement program, Virgin Life Care, first gets employees active and then rewards them for meeting their personal health goals.

According to the Virgin Life Care Web site, people want a health rewards program "that everyone could benefit from, whether they were fit or not. They wanted real rewards that provided an incentive to get healthy. And they wanted to find a way to lower their healthcare costs."

Members of the program earn "HealthMiles" by "exercising, tracking results and improving key body metrics such as blood pressure, body fat, weight and BMI," according to a press release, and participants do all this online. The miles are converted to "Virgin Life Care" cash and redeemed for products from "over 50 leading U.S. retailers."

The main idea of the program is to motivate employees to achieve fitness goals, which Virgin Life Care asserts will cross over into employees' daily on-the-job duties as well.

Read more about wellness programs and healthy tips for employees, and their bosses, in our E-Brief archives.

--Cassandra P. Foster
cfoster@safnow.org

 

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