2021 Employee Wellness Industry Trends Report

The arrival of the new year means the release of Wellable’s 2021 Employee Wellness Industry Trends Report. This comprehensive annual report investigates and quantifies wellness strategies companies are implementing in the upcoming year, providing a guide for employers to help them create a healthy, happy, and productive workforce. Employers and brokers can use this information to make better benefits decisions to ensure they are creating competitive wellness plans that address the needs of current and prospective employees, adap ting to the new normal of a soon-to-be post-pandemic world.

As part of the research, the fourth annual survey explored three key areas:

• Investment Trends – The survey explored employer strategies and sentiments on 24 popular wellness program offerings to see where they were planning to invest.
• Decision Influencers – The survey identified six factors companies consider when making benefit decisions and measured the degree to which these factors influence their choices.
• Vendor Evaluation – Many companies utilize third-party vendors to meet their employee wellness needs. This section of the survey evaluated the top criteria employers use to evaluate vendors.
• COVID-19 Implications – New to this year, the report also includes a special section dedicated to COVID-19 and its impacts on the future of work and well-being.

Download the full report to see all the valuable information gathered from the research. As a teaser, enjoy the interesting tidbits below, which are expounded upon in more detail inside the report.

Mental health programs are seeing a rapid increase in adoption and investment as the pandemic is triggering and exacerbating mental health conditions. Specifically, the majority of employers are increasing their investment in mental health programs (88%), stress management and resilience (81%), and mindfulness and meditation (69%).

• Telemedicine programs experienced one of the most significant increases in popularity of all wellness benefits. Eighty-seven percent of employers plan to invest more in the coming year—a full 25 percentage points higher than the previous year.
• Considering employers’ heightened awareness of health concerns, almost all (92%) brokers believe that the safety measures, sanitary practices, and social distancing guidelines companies established during COVID-19 will remain to some degree even after the pandemic has subsided.
• Almost all (94%) brokers expect that employers will expand their virtual wellness services.
• Eighty-nine percent of brokers believe that employers will continue to offer flexible scheduling to support their caregiver employees even after the pandemic.