Over the last 18 months, I’ve witnessed the wellness companyidentification and selection processes for more than 500 employers,representing more than 1,000,000 employee lives. The business thatI started two years ago was built for exactly this purpose — tofind the optimal wellness company for the unique goals andstrategic objectives of an employer.

Based on the need for such a resource in today’s wellnessmarketplace, neither the volume of searches run through theWellness Navigator nor the 1,000,000+ lives searched through theplatform has come as a surprise. What has been a surprisehowever, are the purchasing trends we’ve begun to identify. Myhope in sharing these insights is to help employers find theoptimal wellness company for their needs, whether they’re startingtheir first wellness initiative or enhancing the resources of aprogram they’ve had for many years.

No silver bullet

The first thing to realize when implementing a wellnessprogram is that you’re not going to snap your fingers(or pay a wellness company) and all of a sudden have healthy,engaged and productive employees. To successfully provide awellness offering to your employees, you have to start by definingwhat success means to your company.

Are you offering a program to decrease absenteeism? Do you wantto make your employees feel more cared for and promote employee engagement? Are youtrying to slow the growth of your rapidly increasing health carecosts? It is important to share this goal with all stakeholdersinvolved in the process to ensure everyone is aligned in themission. This includes vendors, consultants and most importantly,your employees.

Once you’ve decided why wellness is important to yourorganization, you'll have to come to terms with another reality;wellness isn’t simple. Empowering employees to change thebehaviors that have created poor health, financial stress andunhappiness, cannot be accomplished overnight.

Time after time, I’ve seen an employer implement a simplewellness initiative, say biometric screenings and health riskassessments, with the thought that this step alone will make itsemployees healthier. They didn’t think that they would need toingrain the “why” behind this strategic initiative at all levels oftheir organization and culture.

Employees don’t need a survey and a blood test to know they areoverweight and unhappy. Thesetools can however be an important data gathering component to aproperly designed wellness program, allowing an employer toidentify areas to devote future resources and provide a means formeasuring progress over time.

Read: 5 ways to encourage healthy workplaceliving

Apples or oranges?

Beyond the lack of a strategic plan around the welfare of theiremployees, the single biggest surprise that I have seen in thewellness company selection process is that most employers arestrongly in favor of ”one stop shopping.”

Less than 10 percent of searches we’ve seen are for“supplementary” wellness programs such as tobacco cessation, stressmanagement, diabetes management andfinancial wellbeing. These programs are often provided as asupplement to the employer’s core wellness offering and run througha separate third-party vendor. The data is indicating thatemployers want to limit the number of vendors they need to manageand this is creating an interesting dynamic in the wellnessmarketplace.

The “one stop shop” preference can drive the employer to selecta “generalist” wellness company, who does a fair job of providing awide range of services, as opposed to piecing together a group ofspecialist partners. In many cases, the generalists are notthe best option to enact true behavior change within a population,but can be very good at coordinating the effort.

Once problems are identified (high prevalence of smokers, manydiabetics, high incidence of depression, absenteeism, presenteeism,etc.), you want to engage the best wellness companies in each ofthose areas to support your employee population. The processis similar to the way your primary care physician would refer youto a specialist for a heart condition, but remains the vitaladvisor that coordinates these experts and personalizes your careplan.

Some of the most robust programs we’ve seen use their primarywellness company as the central hub to coordinate messaging andincentive design. Around this base, they incorporatespecialized wellness companies to engage employees and targetspecific conditions (tobacco cessation, stress management, diabetesmanagement, financial management).

In response to this buyer preference, wellness companies areevolving. You see more wellness companies taking the “hub andspoke” approach and making a concerted effort to identify the beststrategic partners in services areas that are not their corecompetencies.

Driven by technology and the open API culture that we are livingin today, there’s a greater ability to incorporate specialists intoa program, while driving better outcomes for the employer. Thisalso is leading to a groundswell of merger and acquisition activityin the space, which like the insurer space, is ripe forconsolidation.

We’re seeing an influx of requests from wellness companies,looking for us to help facilitate strategic introductions tocomplimentary wellness partners. Theproduct of these partnerships is providing many new and exciting“one stop solutions” in a quickly evolving market.

When you are looking for the perfect wellness company to partnerwith, decide what you want your wellness program to be and thenunderstand that the partner you choose partner will have strengthsand weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to work with them to identify othercomplimentary wellness companies that can shore up any weaknessesthey may have. The health and productivity of your employees isworth the extra effort.