Companies are buying into wellness programs in a bigway—especially financial wellness—and offering substantially largerfinancial incentives to employees and even their significant othersto woo them into participating.

That's according to the eighth annual survey on corporate healthand well-being from Fidelity Investments and the National BusinessGroup on Health, which finds that companies are increasinglyrealizing how financial wellness impacts employee's overallhealth and acting accordingly.

Not only are some 84% of companies now using financial securityprograms, such as access to debt management tools or student loancounseling, in their well-being strategies—up from 76% lastyear—but financial security programs are the third most popularoffering, after physical well-being programs (95%) and emotionalhealth programs (87%).

Employee incentives are also on the increase, with 74% ofemployers including them. Not only that, the average dollar amountof such incentives is up—to $742, from $651 in 2016 and $521 in2013.

Employers are also boosting incentives for spouses and domesticpartners; the average now for significant others is $694, a 47%increase over the 2016 average of $471.

But other incentives are on offer, too, with 67% of companiesoffering at least one; the two most popular are employee/grouprecognition and raffles.

All this rising interest in wellness is interesting, consideringthat 59% of respondent companies say they have not yet connectedemployee well-being to any key business metrics.

Still, they're boosting not just the programs they offer butalso the breadth of such programs, with 73% of companies includingcommunity involvement in their well-being strategy (up from 65%last year) and 58% including social connectedness (up from 48% lastyear).

Employees are responding with greater participation in mostareas, with the largest participation increase within the financialwellness area: 18%, compared with only 7% last year.

And employers intend to continue to use incentives to winemployee engagement, with 43% saying they'll stay at the same levelbut 26% planning on expanding incentives at a greater level. Sixpercent, on the other hand, plan to cut back, due to lack ofevidence of impact, the cost of programs or incentives and a lackof employee engagement, while 7% don't use incentives any longerand 19% say they don't know.

BenefitsPro