Wellbeing is a personal journey. Since each of your health plan members has different goals, interests, and abilities, you’re probably assessing which tools and resources you can provide to support them. Innovative organizations are prioritizing solutions that drive personalized, whole-person wellbeing. Your members are multi-faceted, after all. Shouldn’t the wellness opportunities provided through their health plan reflect their individuality?
What Is Whole-Person Wellbeing?
Whole-person wellbeing comprises all components of a person’s mind/body wellness. A whole-person approach, therefore, invites people to take care of themselves across all, interconnected dimensions: fitness, nutrition, mental health and stress, sleep, and even financial wellbeing and digital parenting. There’s also a social dimension that can help connect the dots and provide encouragement and motivation for staying on track.
Mental health is on everyone’s mind nowadays. It’s certainly on mine! At home and at work, people are dealing with unprecedented stress and burnout, and having tough conversations about what it means to be mentally healthy. More people are acknowledging that mental health isn’t as simple as being in a good mood, or even successfully coping with depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. A state of mental health — and emotional wellbeing — encompasses our daily mind/body experiences and is influenced by all of the things we do (or don’t do) to take care of ourselves.
That’s where the concept of whole-person wellbeing comes in. While mental health is foundational, it doesn’t manifest in a vacuum, and it doesn’t just “happen.” It relies on support from the physical body — from the interconnected dimensions of wellbeing that individuals can and should nurture on a daily basis, assuming they know how. Unfortunately, most people aren’t provided a single, easy to use and access whole-person wellbeing solution from their health plan.
What Does A Whole-Person Wellbeing Solution Look Like?
If you want to implement a whole-person wellbeing solution for your membership, consider this as a checklist for what to look for:
Include A Supportive Community
Motivation comes from a few different places: intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence people to try new things, make the changes necessary in their lives, and develop habits. Some of your members will invest in wellbeing because they truly love working out or being financially healthy. Others need more motivation and support from the outside, from other people. At the end of the day, we want to feel like we’re not alone.
What most everyone agrees on is the idea of “doing it together,” and joining forces with like-minded peers to pursue goals, share ideas, and celebrate wins. That’s why Grokker includes a digital community of peers and subject-matter wellbeing experts who are always on-hand to provide feedback, advice, and cheerleading.
Lean On Expert Guidance
Achieving whole person wellbeing — or any state of health, for that matter — requires expert guidance to ensure safety and confidence in the process of behavior change. This is one of the reasons that members should not be left to figure things out on their own, and why they look to their health plan for support. Ideally, they should have easy access to professionals with the knowledge and experience in the areas they need help with.
Expert voices should always play a key role in whatever wellbeing program you implement. Grokker’s content is developed and led by credentialed experts with the proven ability to create fun, informative programs that are engaging, safe, and effective.
Provide Access Anytime, Anywhere
We all lead busy lives, and especially as we move out of the pandemic, we’ll once again find ourselves moving from our home or work office to a hotel room or customer site in the blink of an eye. One day we’re working out in our living room, and the next we’re doing a yoga routine while traveling. Accommodating members’ lifestyles — and variety of connected devices! — is imperative. If they don’t have convenient access to go-to wellbeing resources, like Grokker’s on-demand solution, they may choose to skip their routines. Providing access anytime, anywhere ensures that members can engage when they need to.
Make The Pursuit Of Wellbeing Fun And Engaging
We can all agree that pursuing wellbeing and doing what it takes to feel our best shouldn’t feel like a chore. We know intellectually that taking care of ourselves has benefits, but we won’t make time for it unless it’s fun and engaging. One of the easiest ways to make wellbeing fun — and personal — for your health plan members is by offering variety so they can find what they enjoy most. Some people love high-intensity cardio training, but some people prefer to work up a sweat doing yoga. Likewise, some people like to relax with a guided meditation while others enjoy a long walk or a power nap.
Giving your members access to various well-being activities helps them pick what works best for their lifestyle. And if their health plan is giving them credits for completing activities, they need a solution that offers the types of activities that meet their needs every day.
In addition to variety, AI technology and gamification boosts the wellbeing fun factor. Grokker, for instance, is developed with a number of features such as group classes, recommendations, streaks, reminders, challenges, and incentives to keep members motivated and on track — and engaged day after day, year over year!
Whole-Person Wellbeing Is Key For Happier, Healthier Members
In short, your members want a solution that provides easy access, actionable content, and motivation — a one-stop-shop for self-care. That’s because when empowered with what they need to address all aspects of their personal wellbeing, they can explore and experience how the different areas of wellbeing work together in their lives, improve their overall health, and expand their definition of wellness. Even if they’re focusing heavily on mental health right now, they might want to add a sustainable fitness routine or learn skills to sleep better. Their focus is likely to change over time, so your solution must meet your members where they are, so they continue to engage with it as they evolve, even by the day.
