HealthFitness Helps Herbalife Engage Employees in Wellness Promotion Program Through Strategic Use of Incentives

New issue brief explores success of Herbalife's incentive program


MINNEAPOLIS, July 21  /PRNewswire/ -- Providing a corporate wellness plan is an important step in realizing a healthy, more productive workforce. However, without employee engagement, even the best wellness plans won't have an impact. A new issue brief from HealthFitness (NYSE Amex: FIT) explores how Herbalife is motivating its employees to become active in the company's Wellness For Life program.

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Herbalife, a global nutrition company, has a well- earned reputation for its culture of health, as evidenced by its state-of-the-art fitness facility, liberal workday work out policies and corporate sponsorships of worldwide and local athletic events. In 2008, the company took its commitment to employee health to the next level by contracting with HealthFitness to implement a comprehensive, financially-driven wellness program that ties together screening data, health advising and coaching with monetary incentives to encourage employee participation.

"We wanted to roll out Wellness for Life in a big way and get employees feeling positive about it," explained Debbie Lujan, Herbalife's senior director of compensation strategy and services. "HealthFitness provided us with guidance regarding various dollar amounts and the levels of participation that each tends to draw. With that information in hand, combined with the CEO's desire to reward employees with fitness-related merchandise, we came up with a tier of incentives that are helping to remove barriers to employee participation."

The incentives, which can total as much as $500 in merchandise and health care benefits premium reductions -- depending on the extent of an employee's involvement in health risk assessments and wellness activities -- are working. Herbalife reports that initial employee participation rates have surpassed original targets. For example, a total of 1,055 individuals out of 1,286 eligible employees participated in biometric screenings to test for cholesterol, blood glucose, blood pressure and obesity levels. Furthermore, 85 percent of Herbalife employees who are eligible to use the fitness center are now registered members.

"Incentives are vital to any wellness program's success. But to be effective, incentives must be meaningful to a company's employees," said Gregg O. Lehman, HealthFitness president and CEO. "Initial participation rates achieved at Herbalife confirm that the incentives selected for their unique population and culture have hit the mark."

The issue brief, "Herbalife: Successfully Driving Employee Engagement with Incentives," provides additional detail about Herbalife's incentives program and includes additional research about the positive impact incentives have on employee engagement.

To read more or to access HealthFitness issue briefs, go to http://www.hfit.com/briefs.cfm.

About HealthFitness

HealthFitness is an award-winning provider of integrated health promotion and fitness management solutions to Fortune 500 companies, the health care industry and individual consumers. With 30-plus years of experience, HealthFitness partners with employers to effectively manage health care and productivity costs by improving individual health and well-being. HealthFitness provides a portfolio of solutions, including best-in-class integration, INSIGHT  Health Risk Assessments, screenings, EMPOWERED Health Coaching, and fitness facility design and management. For more information on HealthFitness, visit http://www.hfit.com/.

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Gregg O. Lehman

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