Last year, I wrote a post about a weight-loss incentive program implemented by the mayor of Varallo, Italy.  The reward for this program was 200 euros if the individual was able to lose a certain amount of weight and maintain the weight loss for a period of 5 months.  I also posted what I thought were some pros and cons to implementing such a program.

A couple of months ago, I came across another incentive program.  This time, the State of Alabama is encouraging employees to lose weight by telling them that a $25/month insurance fee will be charged to them if within one year they do not make any progress on adopting a healthy lifestyle.  Note that this insurance fee is not applicable for all those employees who are already considered healthy.

In both cases, people are being encouraged to adopt healthy behaviours which is a positive thing.  However, it feels like the incentives are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum; reward versus punishment.

The State of Alabama has clearly said that they have not yet determined what would be considered to be progress.  This is likely a very difficult and touchy word to define in this case.  What is progress for one person may be a walk in the park for another.  The challenge here will be to ensure that they are able to define progress in a way that is relative to all employees.  Setting a fixed amount of weight such as in the case of the town of Varallo, may not be the best way to go.  People are different and progress needs to be defined based on those differences.

Though the intention seems to be the promotion of healthy behaviours among employees, the method by which this employer is trying to achieve this can be argued to be inappropriate.  All employers want healthy employees.  From an economic perspective, it’s a huge cost savings for an employer to invest in preventative health measures than to pay for long-term medical treatment for employees who are already in varying stages of disease.

However, when preventative health measures become imposing mandatory screenings or risk financial punishment, an employer cannot help but expect a backlash.  We often forget that people behave in certain ways because this behaviour is working for them in some way or another.  Neither family, friends nor physicians (least of all an employer), can bully anyone into changing their behaviours, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

Simply putting systems in place, such as free health screenings, free doctor visits and access to health programs is ignoring a huge factor in behaviour change.  People need to understand the reward and the return that they will receive by putting themselves through the additional hassle and headache of screenings, doctors visits and workout programs.  My hunch is that for many, an employer’s transparent attempt at saving money won’t be sufficient to encourage such a behaviour change.  The other question is how much of an impact will $25 make on these employees’ salaries?

The other thing that this plan fails to address is the fact that most people likely know the risks of the behaviours that they have adopted.  We all know that smoking leads to cancer, but there are many people who still smoke.  We know that eating high fat foods will lead to weight gain and possibly heart disease; yet we do it anyway.  Simply knowing that something is bad, is not enough to make someone change their mind about doing it.

Then again, what do I know?  I’m just a lowly employee who is trucking along and doing what works for me.