Employee Engagement with Corporate Based Health and Wellness Programs: A Multisite, Multivariate Regression Analysis

Abstract: Organizations have for decades offered a myriad of health benefit options designed to engage employees in their own personal health. From gamified step challenges (Alahäivälä & Oinas-Kukkonen, 2016; Cugelman, 2013; González-González & Navarro-Adelantado, 2021; King et al., 2013) to weight loss (Peñalvo et al., 2021) and substance abuse programs (Spell & Blum, 2005), organizations have developed a myriad of choices that employees can choose from to enhance their personal health. Copious amounts of research in the Human Resource Development (HRD) field, as well as related disciplines, have lauded and extensively reviewed the importance of both employee engagement (c.f., Shuck et al., 2011) and wellbeing (Kossek et al., 2012). Despite the historically voluminous available research on work and the working experience, health and wellness have often been routinely absent from most models of work in HRD. The purpose of our work was to examine how work and the working experience influenced employee decision points around an employee’s personal levels of health engagement. Using two multiple regression models with participants from a Fortune 500 global logistics company, we explore the linkage between work, health, and employees’ decision-making points to participate in corporate wellness programs.