Most well-being programs rely heavily on announcements.

• A new campaign is launching.

• A challenge is open.

• A webinar is scheduled.

• A resource is available.

Announcements are necessary, but they are rarely enough.

Employees are surrounded by messages all day. HR updates, benefits reminders, manager notes, operational announcements, team chats, and personal notifications all compete for attention.

A well-being announcement can easily become one more thing to ignore.

Peer stories work differently.

A peer story does not simply say, “This program exists.”

It says, “Someone like you used it.”

That distinction matters because humans are social decision-makers. We look to others for clues about what is normal, safe, valuable, and worth our time.

When employees see real colleagues participating, the program becomes more credible. It feels less like an employer initiative and more like a shared experience.

This is especially important in organizations with diverse roles, schedules, locations, and employee groups. A centralized message may not resonate equally with everyone. But a story from a colleague in a similar role can lower skepticism and increase trust.

Peer stories also make well-being more concrete.

Instead of promoting “stress management resources,” an employee might read about a colleague who used a breathing exercise before difficult meetings.

Instead of promoting a “movement challenge,” an employee might see a team that walked together during breaks.

Instead of promoting “preventive care,” an employee might hear from someone who finally scheduled a screening because the program made the next step simple.

These stories give the program a human face.

They show what participation actually looks like.

They also create social proof. When employees believe others are engaging, they are more likely to consider engaging themselves.

For leaders, this means communication should not only explain the program.

It should show the program in action.

That may include spotlight articles, short quotes, team photos, department participation updates, manager call-outs, or employee reflections.

The goal is not to manufacture enthusiasm. The goal is to make real participation visible.

Well-being spreads more easily when employees can see it happening around them.

A program announcement may inform. A peer story can normalize.

And normalization is where culture starts to change.

Propel builds the infrastructure to process and roll-out these peer stories, well-being champions networks, and leadership testimonials. Our team helps you take your program to the next level while keeping your workload light. Book a call with us to see how we work with clients to put these into action.

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One reason well-being programs struggle is that “well-being” can feel too broad.

It is a good word. It is an important word. But for many employees, it can also feel abstract.

An employee may not wake up thinking, “I need to improve my well-being today.”

They may think, “I am exhausted.”

Or, “I am stressed.”

Or, “I need to get my blood pressure under control.”

Or, “I want to have more energy for my kids.”

Or, “I am worried about money.”

Or, “I need to stop feeling so burned out by Thursday.”

That distinction matters.

Employees are more likely to engage when the program connects to the problem they are already carrying.

This is why relevance is one of the most important pieces of well-being strategy.

A program may offer excellent content, but if the employee does not see themselves in the message, they may not act. The topic may be useful, but the framing may not feel personal. The resource may be available, but the employee may not understand why it matters now.

Relevance is created through language, timing, segmentation, and choice.

A new hire may need a different message than a long-tenured employee. A field worker may need a different experience than an office-based employee. A caregiver may respond to a different value proposition than someone training for a fitness goal. An employee managing stress may need a different first step than someone focused on preventive care.

This does not mean every employee needs a completely separate program.

It means the program should offer multiple doors (we call them “on-ramps”) into the same ecosystem.

One person may enter through movement. Another through sleep. Another through financial confidence. Another through a team challenge. Another through a personal health assessment.

The goal is to help employees recognize, “This is for me.”

That moment is powerful.

When well-being feels relevant, participation becomes more than compliance. It becomes personal.

For employers, the lesson is clear.

Do not only promote the program.

Translate the program into the employee’s life.

The more specific the connection, the more likely employees are to engage.

Well-being becomes meaningful when people can see where it fits.

The greatest challenge with a program with multiple on-ramps is its propensity to lose the collectivism that is necessary to create a true culture of well-being.

This is where Propel comes in. Our technology enables multiple entry points while still creating a culture-focused infrastructure that keeps the collective while catering to the individual.

To see how this works in action, schedule a strategy session with us by clicking here.

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Wellness challenges are often popular.

They create energy. They give employees something to join. They add a sense of competition, teamwork, and fun. For a few weeks, participation rises and the program feels alive.

Then the challenge ends.

And engagement inevitably drops.

This pattern is common. It is also a missed opportunity.

The problem is not the challenge itself. Challenges can be one of the most effective tools in a well-being strategy. The problem is treating them as stand-alone events rather than entry points into a larger behavior-change system.

A challenge can get attention.

But attention is not the same as habit.

If the experience ends with a final leaderboard and a thank-you message, employees are left without a next step. The energy disappears. The team disbands. The healthy behavior may fade back into the background.

To make challenges more valuable, organizations should design what happens after the challenge before the challenge ever begins.

What will participants be asked to do next?

Will they complete a well-being assessment? Join a related pathway? Set a personal goal? Track a habit for another two weeks? Share a success story? Participate in a reflection activity? Invite a teammate to continue?

This is where the habit loop begins.

A challenge creates the trigger. The follow-up creates continuity.

For example, a physical activity challenge could lead into a sleep recovery pathway. A stress challenge could lead into a mindfulness series. A team challenge could lead into a department-level recognition moment. A preventive care campaign could lead into a personal health roadmap.

The point is to avoid the cliff.

Employees should not feel like the program disappears when the challenge ends.

They should feel like the challenge opened the door to something useful, personal, and ongoing.

This also changes how leaders evaluate success. The question is not only, “How many people joined the challenge?”

The better question is, “How many people took the next step after it ended?”

Wellness challenges are not just events. Used well, they are engagement engines.

They create momentum, social proof, and a timely reason to act.

The strategy is to make sure that momentum has somewhere to go.

To learn about how Propel turns challenge momentum in one of our completely customized challenges into follow up action, schedule a strategy session with us.

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One of the most overlooked moments in a well-being program is the beginning.

An employee hears about the program. They click the link. They register. They land inside the experience.

Then what?

Too often, the answer is: figure it out😁.

There may be content to browse, challenges to join, assessments to complete, trackers to use, cards to check off and resources to explore. The program may be full of value, but the employee is left to decide what matters most and where to begin.

That moment is critical.

When people face too many options, they often choose none.

This is not because they are lazy or uninterested. It is because uncertainty creates friction. The more mental effort required to start, the less likely action becomes.

In well-being, the first step should be obvious.

Employees need a “start here” moment.

That moment can take many forms. It could be a short assessment. A simple pathway choice. A featured challenge. A personal goal prompt. A question like, “What would you like to improve first: energy, stress, movement, sleep, or financial confidence?”

The key is that the employee is not left wandering.

They are guided.

This matters because registration is not the same as engagement. Getting someone into the platform is only the beginning. If nothing happens immediately after registration, the employee may never return.

A strong “start here” moment creates momentum.

It reduces choice overload. It makes the program feel more personal. It gives the employee a quick win. It helps the organization learn what employees care about. It creates a bridge from awareness to action.

For leaders, this is a practical lesson.

Do not assume employees will explore everything simply because it is available. Most will not.

Design the first step as carefully as the full program.

The easier it is to begin, the more likely employees are to continue.

A well-being program does not need to show employees everything at once.

It needs to help them take the next best step.

That is where engagement begins.

Propel designs a different “start here” moment for each of our clients. Why? Every organization is different. When you reflect on how your unique population works and lives on a daily basis, you’ll quickly see the right first steps emerge.

We spend time learning about your specific rhythms, population, program vision, and culture. Then, we create the right first action for your program so that momentum accelerates, not stalls.

To learn more about how this could look for your organization, schedule a strategy session with Propel’s team by clicking here.

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Can a wellness program actually change culture?

It depends on what we mean by “program.”

If a wellness program is simply a portal, a benefits page, a monthly email, or an annual challenge, the answer is probably no.

Those things may create participation. They may create awareness. They may even create positive feedback.

But culture is deeper than participation.

Culture is what people see, repeat, normalize, and reinforce.

A wellness program begins to shape culture when well-being becomes visible inside the organization. Employees see leaders talk about it. They see peers participate. They hear stories from colleagues. They notice teams supporting each other. They recognize that well-being is not treated as a side activity, but as part of how the organization supports people.

That visibility matters.

Most employees do not decide whether to engage with a program in isolation. They look around. They ask, sometimes silently, “Do people like me participate in this?” “Will my manager support it?” “Is this actually valued here?” “Is this just another HR initiative?”

Culture answers those questions before the employee ever logs in.

This is why wellness cannot live only inside the platform.

The platform may be the hub, but the culture is created through communication, leadership, team norms, recognition, shared routines, and peer examples.

A strong culture of well-being makes healthy action feel normal.

It makes asking for support feel acceptable.

It makes curiosity about personal health feel encouraged, not judged.

It allows employees to explore well-being in a way that fits their role, life stage, schedule, and needs.

For employers, this means the goal is not just to get employees to complete activities.

The goal is to create an environment where well-being has social meaning.

That might look like managers reinforcing campaign themes, teams joining challenges together, employees sharing small wins, leaders recognizing participation, and communications that connect well-being to the organization’s mission.

A wellness program can change culture.

But only when it moves beyond access and becomes part of the everyday employee experience.

Culture is not built by telling people well-being matters.

It is built when people repeatedly see that it does.

Propel focuses directly on the culture integration of each of our clients’ programs. We know that technology can only be a tool, but the culture is the mechanism for sustained growth and change. To learn how we design programming, technology, and engagement strategies that focus intentionally on this, have a chat with us.

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Low engagement is easy to misread.

When employees do not register, complete activities, join challenges, or return to the platform, we often assume they are not interested.

Maybe they do not value well-being.

Maybe they are too busy.

Maybe the program does not appeal to them.

Those explanations may be partly true, but they are often incomplete.

Low engagement is not always an interest problem. Many times, it is a behavior design problem.

Employees may care deeply about their health, stress, energy, finances, sleep, family, and future. They may want to feel better. They may even appreciate that their employer is offering support.

But wanting support and taking action are not the same thing.

There is a gap between intention and behavior.

That gap is where wellness programs often lose people.

If the first step is unclear, employees delay. If communication is sporadic, they forget. If the value is abstract, they ignore it. If no one around them is participating, they assume it is not important. If there is no immediate reward, recognition, or feedback, they do not feel pulled back.

None of that means employees do not care.

It means the program has not been designed around how people actually behave.

Behavior design asks a different set of questions.

What trigger prompts the employee to act? Is the action simple enough? Does the message connect to something the employee already values? Is there social proof? Is the employee guided to a next step immediately after registering? Is participation visible? Is there a reason to return?

These questions matter because employees operate in a busy environment. Workload, stress, competing priorities, family responsibilities, and digital noise all compete with well-being messages.

A program that depends on employee motivation alone will struggle.

A program designed around behavioral friction has a better chance.

That means simplifying choices, creating timely prompts, using trusted messengers, making participation social, and turning one-time actions into repeatable loops.

When engagement is low, the best first move is not to blame the employee.

It is to examine the system.

Often, the interest is there.

The pathway is what needs to change.

Propel brings the discipline of behavioral economics to our design process when we create a fully customized well-being platform for each of our clients. We know that, because each organization is different, we must understand your unique behavioral friction points before a program is designed. If you’d like to take the next step in exploring Propel’s powerful technology and support offering, please schedule a strategy session with us here.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel

When well-being engagement is low, the natural response is often to add more.

• More content.

• More challenges.

• More campaigns.

• More resources.

• More options.

The instinct makes sense. If employees are not participating, perhaps they need something new. Maybe the topic is wrong. Maybe the challenge needs a better name. Maybe the portal needs another feature.

Sometimes that is true.

But often, the problem is not that the organization lacks programs. The problem is that the programs are not connected by a system that helps employees move from interest to action.

Employees may have access to fitness resources, mental health tools, financial education, preventive care reminders, nutrition content, and personal assessments. Yet when the experience feels scattered, the employee is left to decide where to begin, what matters, what to do next, and why they should return.

That is a lot of friction.

Most people do not change behavior because they were handed a large menu of healthy options. They change when the next step feels clear, timely, personal, and achievable.

This is why adding more well-being programming can sometimes make engagement worse.

Too many choices can create uncertainty. Too much content can dilute the message. Too many campaigns can train employees to ignore communication. The more complicated the experience feels, the less likely employees are to act.

A stronger strategy is not always more things but a more appropriate structure.

That may mean creating a simple “start here” pathway. It may mean organizing the year around quarterly themes. It may mean using challenges as entry points into deeper programs. It may mean sending different messages to different employee groups. It may mean following every campaign with a clear next action.

The goal is to create movement.

Well-being improves when employees are guided through a repeatable experience that makes healthy action easier to start and easier to sustain.

More programs can help, but only when they fit into a larger engagement system.

Without that system, well-being becomes a collection of disconnected resources.

With it, well-being becomes a path employees can actually follow.

Propel can help you turn your program into a system with intentionally designed infrastructure that not only performs well but also reflects your culture. Our strategy team would love to hear about your program and talk about how Propel would go about building that system. To schedule a short call with them, click here.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel

A question many organizations should ask is this:

Did we buy a wellness platform, or did we build a wellness strategy?

The difference matters.

A platform gives employees access. It can house resources, activities, challenges, assessments, content, incentives, and tracking tools. Those are valuable, but access alone does not create behavior change.

Employees do not participate simply because something exists.

They participate when the experience feels relevant, easy, visible, and connected to something that matters in their real life.

This is where many programs struggle. The employer may have the right tools, strong vendor relationships, useful content, and a genuine desire to support employees. Yet engagement remains inconsistent.

Participation spikes during a challenge, then fades. Employees register once, then disappear. Leaders support the idea of well-being, but it rarely becomes part of the daily rhythm of work.

That is not usually a technology problem. It is a strategy problem.

A true well-being partnership looks beyond the platform and asks better questions.

Where are employees getting stuck? Which groups are engaging, and which are not? What messages are actually moving people to action? Are managers reinforcing the program? Are employees seeing peers participate? Is the program connected to the organization’s culture, or does it sit off to the side as another benefit?

A platform can organize the experience.

A strategic partner helps activate it.

That means reviewing data, identifying behavioral barriers, simplifying the first step, creating communication rhythms, designing meaningful campaigns, and building pathways that move employees from awareness to action.

The future of employee well-being will not be won by adding more resources to a portal.

Most organizations already have plenty of resources.

The harder challenge is helping employees notice them, trust them, use them, return to them, and eventually allow them to shape daily behavior.

That requires more than access. It requires partnership, strategy, and a clear understanding of how people actually change.

A wellness program should not simply be something employees can find. It should be something they can feel working inside the culture.

Propel works as a strategic partner with our clients to make every component of their program meaningful and intentionally designed for action. If you’d like to learn more about how we could help you level-up and scale your program, schedule a strategy session with us here.

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What makes a habit?

Most people would tell you that a habit is just something they do repetitively. Many of them would say that the vast number of their habits “just sort of happened” and stuck with no conscious effort on their part.

• They always put the toothpaste on before wetting the toothbrush.

• They eat their broccoli before their chicken.

• They sit two rows from the back during every quarterly meeting.

What is the psychology behind a habit? Why do we act repetitively, sometimes unaware we’re doing it?

As a people leader in the context of well-being, habits are your friend. They are the difference between a healthy behavior being a once-in-a-while action and an everyday action.

To effectively form habits, you must understand how they come to be.

Habits are often misunderstood as just "things we do a lot," but they actually have a very specific relationship with our conscious goals.

1. Habits are the "Leftovers" of Old Goals

Habits don’t just appear out of nowhere; they start as intentional actions. When you repeatedly take the same action to achieve a result in the same environment (like reaching for the seatbelt every time you sit in a car), your brain eventually automates the process. Over time, the context (the car seat) triggers the action (buckling up), even if you aren't consciously thinking about the goal of safety anymore.

When we do something for the first, second, and even third time, we more intentionally think about it. Once we have determined that the action is in line with our goals, it becomes the default.

2. Habits are the "Auto-Pilot" to Your "Manual" Brain

Your brain uses two systems that usually work together:

• The Goal System (Manual): Conscious, flexible, but slow and tiring.

• The Habit System (Auto-pilot): Fast, efficient, and requires almost no effort.

While they usually pull in the same direction, the habit system is your default setting. Because it’s so efficient, your brain will defer to a habit whenever you are tired, stressed, or distracted, simply to save energy.

The habit must have low barriers and be safe for it to become a default. It’s important to note that barriers can become lower over time. When you first learned to drive a car, the barriers you faced when merging onto the interstate were significant. After 20 years of practice, they became much more manageable.

3. We Trick Ourselves into Thinking Habits are Intentional

This is the "hindsight" effect. When we find ourselves doing something habitually (like checking our phones for the tenth time in an hour) our brains don't like feeling out of control. To make sense of it, we tell ourselves, "I must have wanted to do that." We look at our frequent behavior and falsely assume it was a conscious choice, even if it was just a mindless reflex.

This is where most well-being programs get it wrong.

They focus on the goal system (educating, incentivizing, and encouraging people to take action) without ever fully accounting for the system that actually drives behavior at scale: habits.

You can motivate someone to go for a walk once.
You can incentivize them to track it twice.

But neither guarantees they’ll do it when they’re tired, stressed, or busy.

And that’s the real test.

If habits are the leftovers of old goals, then well-being programs shouldn’t just be trying to inspire action, they should be designed to install it.

That means:

• Reducing friction until the healthy choice becomes the easiest choice

• Repeating actions in consistent contexts so cues can form

• Reinforcing early behaviors before motivation fades

• Designing environments where the default behavior works in your favor

Because in the end, people don’t rise to the level of their intentions.

They fall back to the level of their habits.

And the organizations that win in well-being aren’t the ones that create the most awareness…

They’re the ones that build systems where the right behaviors happen automatically.

Propel works with our clients to build sustainable systems that are easy to administrate and effective to last. Schedule a call with us to learn how we build real habits with technology that looks and feels like your organization by clicking here.

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Have you ever struggled to understand why one healthy behavior takes root while another fails miserably?

Why does someone start and continue eating 2 servings of vegetables daily yet struggle to get out the door to be active?

What is behind the ability to live healthy one way, yet feel so unable to do it in another realm?

Leaders within organizational well-being and benefits programs must concern themselves with this kind of question. We’re often promoting healthy living across the board for colleagues without giving thought to why some of our recommendations succeed while others fail.

Was the cooking demonstration a bust just because we see four attendees continue to eat out every day for lunch?

Did we present the wrong content?

The end goal for a corporate-backed well-being program is (or at least should be) the motivation of employees toward sustained behavior change. For something to be truly impactful, it must alter our behavior longer than a day or two. It has to take root in our lives.

Why is that?

Motivation isn’t reliable.

Programming focused on improving motivation can see results - in the short-term.

The scenario happens far too often.

We run an initiative focused on something, we’ll use better sleep as an example, and give employees access to sleep health resources or tools to help them sleep better.

They get excited, feel motivated by the new information, tools, or maybe the underlying message.

We hear good things. They use the tools and start trying the techniques.

Then our busy season hits.

Suddenly schedules are different, workloads are up, and pressure to perform rises.

Now, motivation has faded. We see our programming recommendations fall by the wayside. The great tips and tools we once had have become a thing of the past.

The truth is, we never established a repetitive or anchored process. We relied too heavily on motivation to change behavior.

Motivation fluctuates. Habits endure.

Employees motivation levels vary daily due to workload, stress, and external pressures.

Habits, on the other hand, operate below conscious awareness. This allows well-being behaviors to persist even during demanding periods.

Employee well-being programming must be designed for habits to form, not simply motivation to increase. Without habit formation, behavior change will always be temporary.

👉Next week, we’ll take a look at how habit formation relates to our goals and its implications for the type of well-being programming you need to be running to see real progress.

Propel designs well-being programming as habit formation infrastructure by combining corporate culture and behavioral economics with robust technology that makes it possible to see sustainable change at scale. If you want to learn more about how Propel works, take a look here.

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What is the hidden cost of developing a well-being experience steeped in AI?

This is a question that has been asked within the public forum, but often it is overshadowed by high spending companies that want technology to take center stage.

AI offers many promising advantages when placed in a healthcare setting. This paper presents a strong use case for using AI cancer screenings, demonstrating clear superiority of AI to detect cancerous cells.

However, in the context of human behavior, things get a bit more murky.

Initial studies have shown positive outcomes from the use of AI chatbot coaches in the areas of physical activity, smoking cessation, and diet. It’s worth noting that many of these studies had limited sample sizes and were not randomized controlled trials. There are also questions about how AI coaching can affect habits in the real world.

While AI provides many of the components needed for behavior change (authority, acting as social proof, liking), there are concerns about how it will affect how people interact with real people.

A 2025 study found that active usage of chatbots has effects on mental well-being, namely “higher emotional dependence and problematic use.” The substitution of AI for a human connection can lead to less real-world socialization.

In the context of an employer well-being program, we now have a real challenge.

On the one hand, AI presents the opportunity to scale, provide hyper-personalized guidance, and possesses many of the components needed to change behavior. On the other hand, it can lead to a population of individualized, disconnected employees.

At Propel, we often speak about the power of culture and its ability to create habits, make well-being more sustainable, and bring people together.

The hidden cost of AI is the loss of the unique power your organization has to influence behavior. It trades continual connection and mutual support of habit formation for timely pings with recommendations that (one hopes) someone puts into practice.

Let’s consider the whole picture and how we want our organizations to look in 3 years before taking a step into hyper-personalized, isolated well-being.

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“What are best practices for well-being incentive program design?”

This is without a doubt one of the most common questions we get.

Conventional strategies might try to assign a value that gets people to engage (our experience shows roughly $300+ moves the needle). They may also give you pointers on the activities included in the program.

We think we can do better.

Instead of looking at industry trends today, we’re going to steal some strategies from consumer brands by exploring how they get us to use their products.

These brands have become masters of motivation, tapping into deep psychological truths that affect us all.

Strategy 1: The New Account Offer

From food delivery services to banking, you’ve undoubtably been exposed to new account offers.

• DoorDash gives new accounts a $0 delivery fee on their first order when they sign up.

• AT&T offers new customers a new Samsung Galaxy phone when they switch to their service.

• Capital One gives new clients a $325 bonus when they set up a checking account with a direct deposit.

These are nothing new, but they continue to motivate us to sign up for new services. The incentive is timed to drive the state of no action (no account) to action (setting up an account). While most businesses don’t make money right from the point you set up an account, they know that once you are moved to action, you are easier to activate in the future.

Implication for well-being: incentivizing the entry point gets people to move from no action to action.

Strategy 2: Refer a Friend

Once you have an account, you’re primed to take action. But the consumer brands want more from you. They paid to reach you, but they want to take a shortcut to acquire new business. Brands know that referrals are some of the least expensive yet ultrapowerful motivators for behavior.

• Discover offers a referral bonus in the form of a statement credit when you refer a friend and they make a purchase. Each of you gets a statement credit.

• AirBNB provides a referral bonus in the form of a coupon for the new customer and an account credit for the existing customer.

• Dropbox offers up to 16GB of extra storage space for you and a friend when you refer them.

In fact, data shows that customers who were referred have a 37% increase in retention and spend 5x more when compared to baseline customers. Their behavior is more engaged, just by receiving a referral.

Implication for well-being: referral bonuses for both the party who is referring and the new participant can increase engagement and long-term retention.

Strategy 3: Pay for User Generated Content

Social media platforms are full of user generated content. But how to companies capture that authenticity and demonstrate their product or service has visible momentum within the community?

Many prominent brands pay for people to submit this content.

• GoPro maintains an ongoing "Awards" platform where users submit raw footage. Selected creators receive cash payouts (often $500–$1,000 for photos or videos), and some have their footage featured in global TV commercials.

• Starbucks has historically run contests where customers decorate their red cups around the holiday season and share photos. Winners have received gift cards valued at up to $500.

• Aerie asked customers to share unretouched photos of themselves wearing Aerie swimsuits, promising to donate $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association for every picture shared.

You’ll notice that these campaigns often didn’t immediately reward submissions, but instead ran contests or raffles. At Propel, we’ve seen this strategy work extremely well with our “Healthy Selfie” challenges we run for clients.

Implication for well-being: user generated content gets people engaged and also demonstrates visual social proof, something newly engaged employees need to keep them engaged.

If these strategies sound difficult to actually put into practice with your current technology (or the bandwidth of your team), Propel can help. Schedule a strategy session with us to learn how we bring these strategies to life within well-being.

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A question many organizations eventually face is this:

If employees give our program great feedback, why don’t we see meaningful improvement in claims data?

The answer lies in understanding that employee sentiment and risk migration are two very different outcomes.

Positive feedback tells us something valuable. It tells us that employees like the experience and find the program engaging.

But claims data reflects something entirely different.

Claims only improve when health risks actually migrate—when high-risk individuals change behaviors long enough to shift biometric risk and long-term health outcomes.

Most well-being programs today are designed to drive participation and positive sentiment, not necessarily financial or health risk movement. When that’s the case, a program can be very popular without meaningfully affecting claims.

When claims remain flat despite positive feedback, three explanations are common.

First, the program may not have been in place long enough.

Meaningful claims impact typically takes 18 to 36 months to emerge at scale. Some level of patience is required to see the change within the population.

Second, the program may not be engaging the right segment of the population.

In most employer health plans, 10–20% of members drive the majority of claims costs. If that cohort is not materially improving, overall claims will remain largely unchanged—even if the broader population is satisfied with the program.

Third (often the most significant factor), the program may not have been engineered specifically for financial impact.

Many well-being programs focus on participation metrics, engagement campaigns, or incentives designed to drive activity. While those elements can create a positive experience, they do not necessarily create the conditions required for meaningful risk reduction.

If leadership expects claims movement, the program must be architected for risk migration.

That means identifying the organization’s specific risk profile and designing programming that intentionally targets the health risks most closely tied to future claims costs.

When well-being programs are structured around participation alone, they can succeed at engagement without changing outcomes.

But when they are designed around risk movement, participation becomes a means to a different end: improving the underlying health trajectory of the population.

And that is where claims improvement begins.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel

One of the most common realities organizations face is senior leaders saying they support well-being, when they aren’t actively championing it.

It’s easy to believe this lack of support is resistance towards the program. More often, it is a framing problem.

Senior leaders typically operate under what behavioral scientists call negativity bias and downside risk orientation. In practical terms, leaders are constantly asking themselves two questions:

What am I accountable for?

What could go wrong that I’m responsible for preventing?

Because of this, leaders are trained—formally or informally—to focus more on preventing failure than on optimizing positive outcomes.

That mindset shapes how they evaluate programs.

When well-being is framed as something that improves engagement, happiness, or culture, it may sound positive—but it does not register as something that protects the organization from risk. As a result, leaders may approve it but not actively prioritize it.

The key is to move well-being into leadership’s accountability lane.

Instead of presenting well-being primarily as a culture initiative, it should be framed as something that stabilizes the areas leaders are responsible for managing.

For example:

• A stabilizer of workforce volatility

• A reducer of preventable safety incidents

• A hedge against spikes in health costs

• A lever to minimize productivity leakage

When well-being is presented through this lens, it becomes relevant to the issues leaders are already thinking about and discussing.

Most leaders are not anti–well-being. They are just pro–risk management.

So, the goal is not to convince leaders that well-being is beneficial. Instead, the goal is to demonstrate that a well-designed well-being program protects the outcomes they are accountable for.

When well-being is connected to operational stability and risk reduction, leadership support tends to deepen.

And when that happens, programs move from being viewed as optional initiatives to being seen as infrastructure that supports the organization’s success.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel

Many well-being leaders struggle with an important communication challenge.

How do you shift leadership conversations from participation metrics to risk reduction when you do not yet have a clear ROI?

The good news is that perfect ROI data is not required to change the conversation.

What leaders are really looking for is directional movement tied to the risks they care about.

Most well-being programs report surface-level metrics such as:

• Platform registrations

• Incentive completion rates

• Challenge participation

• Content engagement

These metrics are useful and necessary for program management.

However, they rarely capture leadership attention because they do not connect to what leaders are accountable for.

Senior leaders are constantly thinking about issues such as workforce stability, safety performance, health cost volatility, and productivity. Reporting needs to align with those priorities.

Instead of only reporting participation metrics, organizations can begin reporting indicators that suggest risk stabilization.

Examples include:

• Changes in preventive screening participation

• Engagement with musculoskeletal programs in high-injury divisions

• Trends in absenteeism or turnover stability

• Uptake of sleep or metabolic health resources among safety-critical roles

At this stage, the goal is not to claim savings.

The goal is to show that the program is moving in the direction of reduced exposure.

Directional indicators demonstrate that the organization is addressing risk factors that ultimately drive financial and operational outcomes.

When well-being is reported this way, it becomes aligned with the areas leaders are responsible for managing. This alignment changes the internal conversation.

Instead of being viewed as a participation initiative, well-being begins to look like infrastructure that stabilizes people risk.

And when leaders see a program connected to the problems they are responsible for solving, that is when attention increases and well-being programs begin to move from the margins of the organization toward the center of strategic decision-making.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel

It’s one of the most familiar patterns in workplace well-being. Launch participation looks promising. Early activity feels encouraging. And then, gradually, engagement fades.

By midyear, only a fraction of employees are active. By year-end, participation becomes transactional and rushed.

The usual explanation is motivation. The real explanation is timing.

Human behavior is heavily influenced by present bias. We naturally give more weight to what costs or benefits us now and far less to what might help us later. This matters because most well-being behaviors carry immediate friction. They take time, attention, or effort today, while the payoff feels distant.

So, when employees disengage, it isn’t because they don’t care about their health. It’s because the program asks them to absorb immediate cost for future value that doesn’t feel concrete yet.

Many programs unintentionally reinforce this problem. Annual goals, year-end incentives, and long timelines quietly signal that effort today won’t be rewarded anytime soon. From a behavioral perspective, that’s a difficult proposition to sustain.

Programs that maintain engagement work differently. They compress time. They make progress visible quickly. They reduce the psychological distance between action and benefit.

Shorter program cycles help. Early milestones matter. Visible progress reassures people that their effort is producing something tangible. Our natural behavioral patterns are reflected in this continuation of effort. Once someone feels they’ve already started, walking away feels like losing progress rather than opting out. The brain doesn’t like walking away from something that we already have.

This isn’t about willpower. It’s about a better design that specifically places human timing in mind.

If engagement fades over time, the issue is rarely commitment or interest. It’s that the program delays the experience of progress. Leaders should treat time as a behavioral lever, designing programs that reward early effort and make benefits feel immediate rather than distant.

At Propel, we spend a lot of time working with organizations that see this exact pattern. The program itself is sound, but the design unintentionally asks people to wait too long to feel progress. When timing is treated as a behavioral variable rather than a calendar decision, engagement patterns often begin to make more sense.

If this pattern feels familiar, it may be worth a conversation. Sometimes it helps to step back and diagnose where effort and reward are misaligned. Schedule a strategy session explore an exploratory strategy session to talk it through with our team.

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An example of a fully customized well-being portal designed by Propel