American Express workplace wellness program enjoys successful global strategy
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Since its U.S. rollout in 2009, New York-based American Express Co.'s Healthy Living workplace wellness program has grown into a global strategy that encompasses worksites in 22 countries.
Although the Healthy Living strategy was conceived under a single global objective — keeping employees healthy and productive on the job — the specific wellness resources and activities offered to employees in foreign countries vary not only from the original U.S.-based program but from each other.
“It's a data-driven, global strategy with local execution, realizing that there are wide variations in the needs and resources in different countries of the world,” said Dr. Wayne Burton, New York-based vice president and global corporate medical director at American Express.
One key difference between American Express' domestic wellness program and those it has implemented overseas is the use and efficacy of incentives designed to drive employee participation, Dr. Burton said.
When Healthy Living launched in the U.S., employees who completed its health risk assessment were rewarded with a $100 contribution to their flexible spending accounts, resulting in a 55% participation rate in the program's first year.
By contrast, the company offered employees in India a $10 healthy meal voucher for completing a similar health risk questionnaire when it began rolling the program out globally in 2010, drawing a participation rate of 70%.
“Incentives are not the focus outside the U.S.,” Dr. Burton said. “We do use them in some countries, but it's nowhere near the same level of spending you see in the U.S., where its hundreds and hundreds of dollars per employee in some cases.”
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