Demonstrated Success:

I am so proud to work at a company that places health and wellness as a top priority for their employees. Aetna has a suite of over 70 programs that our employees can personalize based on their needs including women’s health care, personal health and wellness coaching, and much more. My personal contributions have been in the area of financial wellness.  I have managed and grown the program over the last three years and have affected the lives of thousands of employees.  The Financial Wellness Works program is ahead of the curve on so many levels.  The program offers one-on-one personal financial consultations, in-person workshops, virtual live webcasts, a Financial Wellness Assessment and an intranet site that houses it all, along with videos, calculators, and resources on many different topics all in one place.

a. What did your most successful program/intervention address? The Financial Wellness Works program addresses employee’s financial knowledge and health. 

b. What intervention worked best to address this issue? The best intervention to accomplish getting employees better educated on their finances was developing a program that meets the employee where they are on the journey to financial wellness.  There are workshops addressing introductory topics and concepts as well as intermediate and advanced topics and concepts.  Employees are also encouraged to complete the Financial Wellness Assessment to help them understand where they are on the knowledge continuum and we’ve structured the program in such a way that employees have a path to follow and can start on that path wherever they presently are on that continuum.   

c. What were the specific outcomes of your intervention as they relate to each of the three outcome categories below?

Health status improvements (or cost savings): Over the past several years of studying the impact of the Financial Wellness Works program, we have seen higher 401k deferral rates, lower absenteeism, lower garnishments, and higher health savings participation among employees who are using the program.
Behavior change: We saw significant behavioral change among program participants when we surveyed them 30 days after participating in the Financial Wellness Program:

88% had taken at least one step to improve their finances. Among that group, 72% had taken up to three additional steps to further improve their finances.

Among the top actions taken were:

Reviewing retirement plan asset allocation
Reducing credit card debt
Using calculators and/or worksheets provided by Financial Finesse
Reducing monthly expenses
Making changes in retirement investment strategies

98% of employees who have participated in the program are better prepared to make financial decisions

Culture change: Aetna has made wellness a core component of the Company’s culture using the three-pronged approach; tying together the physical, financial, and emotional wellness programs into one cohesive benefit. Since creating a comprehensive wellness benefit over six years ago, we have seen a huge cultural shift within Aetna and our employees. Employees from different work locations compete to be best in several wellness programs, making the programs part of what we do every day.

d. Our wellness team has used all seven WELCOA benchmarks when designing the program, as well as throughout the course of the program evolving.

1.Capturing CEO Support

Gaining executive and CEO support was crucial in order to emphasize the importance of the benefit so that it would resonate with employees and galvanize the workforce around the importance of overall health and wellness.  Aetna’s credo is “Building a healthier world” and what better place to start than with our employees?

2.Creating Cohesive Wellness Teams

Aetna Wellness Works, which is the overarching wellness program that combines the physical, emotional and financial wellness benefits, is made up of Wellness Champions who work together to educate employees on the programs and services that are available to them. Aetna also has numerous Wellness Committees across the country.  These are made up of employee-ambassadors of the program who help to create local engagement in the various services that the program provides.

3.Collecting Data to Drive Health Efforts

Aetna assesses our employees’ strengths and vulnerabilities through a Financial Wellness Assessment, which is pivotal to the progress of our program as it helps us determine exactly what our employees’ needs are, what topics to focus on, and how to position the program for the future.

4.Carefully Crafting an Operating Plan

Our operating plan continues to be developed based on a variety of factors.  We use the results of our Financial Wellness Assessment, which we monitor on an ongoing basis to assess what topics may be of the most beneficial to employees.  We also look at what’s happening in the world around us.  New legislation is being passed all the time, and the financial world having been in a state of turmoil thorough most of the time that this program has been in place, it’s important to have an operating plan that is flexible enough to provide employees with the education they need, right when they need it. And, of course, we also look at cost.  There an established budget for the program and it’s my responsibility to ensure that Aetna and our employees get the most possible from it.

5.Choosing Appropriate Interventions

The Financial Wellness Assessment helps us determine what the financial priorities are among our employees and address them through the program. Our program is designed to meet employee needs from debt management, retirement planning, and investing, to tax and estate planning. The program offers approximately 20 different workshop topics throughout the year so that they’re available when employees need them as well.  Not everyone is ready for everything at the same time and those needs also change over time and due to personal circumstances.

6.Creating a Supportive Environment

The holistic approach to our wellness program has helped us achieve a supportive environment, in that all aspects of our wellness program have our employees’ health and well-being at the forefront of our employee communications.  Additionally, with the Healthy Lifestyles program that Aetna promotes, employees are encouraged to participate in the wellness programs by earning incentives.  It’s clear to employees that wellness is important and we’ve put our money where our mouth is, so to speak.

7.Carefully Evaluating Outcomes

Every interaction an employee has with the Financial Wellness Works program is evaluated and monitored.  We look for ratings of each workshop, webcast and one-on-one personal financial consultation to achieve a score of 4.5 on a 5-point scale.  Changes are made if necessary based on employee and vendor feedback and we continue to monitor results. Also, we work with our vendor to develop a case study each year, showing how employee financial behaviors vary between participants and non-participants.  We think it is important to show the growth in employees’ knowledge and how that translates into behaviors that will make them well financially, and likely physically and emotionally too.  

3. Leadership 

a. Describe specifically how you “walk the talk” by living a healthy lifestyle.   When I joined Aetna I didn’t know how much I didn’t know beyond basic personal finance.   I’m now on track to be able to retire early and my family and friends come to me to discuss their financial questions.  It’s truly remarkable!
b. What resources or experiences helped you achieve leadership status in your field?  I really only ever tried to be a leader in this crusade for myself, Aetna, and our employees, but I’ve learned that it’s important to share Aetna’s successes to help others.  I’ve provided guidance to others wanting to join the financial wellness revolution, participated in conferences, developed educational materials and have been cited in publications for Aetna’s work in this area.
c. What advice would you give other wellness practitioners who are hoping to become leaders in the field?  I would advise others to be passionate about financial wellness and to be patient.  This combination is critical to seeing the success of the program.  If your program is built with passion and credibility, it will flourish, but it will take time.  Start out slowly, build on a strong foundation, and keep with it. 

4. Innovation 
Since taking the lead on the financial wellness program in the last few years, it has been one of my biggest priorities to continually evolve the program to keep pace with the needs of Aetna’s employees. As knowledge deepened, it meant expanding on some of the topics we were doing to provide additional depth.  We also have tried different program campaigns to keep the look and feel of the program new without losing the consistency in the quality of the benefits.  The Financial Wellness Works program has also joined with the physical and emotional wellness benefits to allow employees to earn incentives by participating in the workshops, personal consultations and wellness assessments that Aetna’s Wellness Works program sponsors.

a. What have you done differently to generate better results?
1. I noticed a large amount of our employees were too busy to sit in on workshops or webcasts, but they were still eager to learn. In an effort to reach out to this unique demographic and further communicate the value of the program to all employees, we created video content for our employees in topics that were most important to them such as “How Much Will You Need for Retirement?” and a series on “Investing” and “Buying a Home”.

2. Introducing “gamification” as a means to deliver the education to reach our younger demographic as well as provide a fun and interactive way for employees to participate in the program was another win for me, my team, and Aetna. We worked with Financial Finesse to offer a jeopardy style webcast called “Money Madness”, set up a friendly competition between employees across the company, all competing for the highest score by the end of the year, which resulted in a financial prize.

3. Based on behavioral finance research, which suggests that visualization tools give employees a more vested interest in their future happiness, I am exploring implementing age-progression tools into our program in order to boost employees’ interest in their retirement planning. This is an avenue that I feel can help employees understand how their behaviors today will impact their financial futures.

b. For each innovative strategy or intervention listed, what were the results/outcomes as they relate to each of the three outcomes categories below? Use specific numbers when possible.

1. The short, monthly videos have been extremely popular and will remain an ongoing part of the program.  In 2013, Aetna employees accumulated over 20,000 views of these videos, which confirmed our belief that one size does not fit all in the area of financial education.

2. Money Madness brought a whole new take to Aetna employees on financial education.  This workshop provided a way to learn about important financial concepts in a fun, team atmosphere.  Managers used this workshop as a means of team building and others as a way to engage employees in staff meetings while supporting the Company’s overall wellness strategy. It has been fun and satisfying to see this idea gain traction among our employees. The feedback on this webcast has been extraordinary, at an average of 4.68 on a 5-point scale.

3. As noted, implementing an age progression tool isn’t in the works as of yet, but the focus on helping employees understand the importance of money management and saving for retirement is causing Aetna to look at how new and more innovative ideas like this can help change behavior and inspire employees to take action.

1.Compelling Vision

a.What do you think are the biggest threats or opportunities that the health promotion industry faces throughout the next 5 years?

b.In the next 5 years, what directions do you plan to pursue to advance the industry?

I am optimistic about the future of Health Promotion.   

Many employers have started to make the shift from focusing on the cost of treating illness to the need to keep employees well.  Employee wellness is critical for any business to be productive and successful.  While there is some uncertainty around health care, I think that the case for employee wellness has been solidified.  I also believe that as companies expand their commitment to employee wellness, that financial wellness will be a natural extension of those programs. I also hope that companies openly share their successes with others looking for the same results.

To keep the momentum going, I am pursuing my Financial Well-being certification through Welcoa and will continue to use my knowledge of Aetna’s Financial Wellness Works program to highlight the benefits Aetna’s employees have experienced to encourage others to join the crusade for financial wellness.