LCRA Realizes Decrease in Health Risk Factors with a Holistic Approach to Wellness
Looking for a Program as Unique as their Employees
Identifying the Challenge:
LCRA was established in 1934 and serves Texans through water stewardship, energy, and community service. Their diverse team works together to manage the lower Colorado River and provide a reliable water supply, generate and transmit electric power, support community development, and oversee a public parks system.
LCRA’s 2,000 employees work in a variety of locations. An employee’s “office” can range from the inside of a dam on the Colorado River, to the top of a transmission line, to a power plant, to a local park, or even an environmental laboratory. With such a diverse employee population, LCRA was looking for a wellness program that would meet the varying needs and wellness priorities among their workforce. They needed a program that provided a holistic approach to wellbeing and offered more than the typical physical activities usually associated with wellness programs.
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Creating a Culture of Wellness
Considering the Options:
In searching for a new wellness program, LCRA had two primary goals: increase participation among employees and offer whole-person wellness programming.
LCRA’s workforce is on the front lines of delivering critical services for the people of Texas, and as such needed a program that employees could participate in from anywhere, at any time. When considering their options for a new platform, mobility and integration were key factors.
Primary Goals
- Increase Participation amongst Employees
- Offer Whole-Person Wellness Programming
As with many companies, LCRA employs a multi-generational workforce, many of whom have a tenure of more than 15 years with the company. Some employees are even the third generation in their family to serve the community through LCRA. The director of compensation and benefits, Dionne Walker, explains, “We needed a program that offered a more holistic approach that would help employees achieve the wellness goals that best fit their individual needs. Our employees take advantage of various challenges, whether financial, social, mental or physical, and we have customized the program to offer different options for earning points in these areas.”
Easy Implementation
Building a Solution:
After going through an RFP process with a broker, LCRA found a solution in WellRight. Their HR administrators’ goal was to start the program in January, and with the ease of implementation with WellRight, the entire program was complete and ready for testing by mid-December–far in advance of their deadline and only a few short weeks after starting the process.
One unique aspect of the LCRA wellness program is its quarterly programming. In order to keep their diverse employee population engaged, administrators consistently promote a variety of activities each quarter, and employees earn their wellness incentives on a quarterly basis as well. This model keeps employees motivated and highly engaged.
WellRight’s highly configurable platform also allows for customized assessment reporting on a quarterly basis. Senior Benefits Specialist Laura Flores worked closely with WellRight’s account manager to enhance LCRA’s programming to add specific activities and incentives to their roadmap. “Training was very easy, and our account manager was readily available to help along the way,” she explains. “The WellRight system is very intuitive and extraordinarily easy to use.”
Something for Everyone
Loving the Results:
LCRA has been a WellRight customer since 2016 and has seen measurable success with WellRight’s habit-based programming and education.
The number of employees with three or more biometric health screening risk factors decreased by almost 16% from 2017 to 2019. And in 2019, almost 50% of employees in the group with three or more high-risk factors in the prior year improved to less than three high-risk factors.
One key to their success is the 30-day habit formation approach. “It takes time to build a new habit, and the ability to have 30-day challenges helps facilitate that process,” says Walker. “It’s working on a healthy habit over the course of time that provides real results.”
Creativity is another key to the success of the LCRA wellness program. The ease of customization in the WellRight platform allows administrators to create programming that not only offers enough variety to resonate among various groups of employees but also ties in LCRA company initiatives and brings behavioral change to those efforts. One unique challenge, “Back Into It,” was created to incentivize employees to back into parking spaces, reducing accidents and increasing safety. “It was one of our favorite challenges because you could quite literally look at the parking lot and see employees participating,” says Flores.
LCRA’s overall goal with its wellness program is to offer a holistic approach to wellness and to engage its vast workforce. Through the company’s customized quarterly programming and incentives and the ability to offer a variety of activities that resonate with specific employee cohorts, WellRight has been a valuable solution. Lehoski concludes, “The variety of ways to earn points and receive incentives has truly made the program accessible for everyone. WellRight’s integration of a holistic approach to wellness, coupled with the easy-to-use site and app, is a critical factor in LCRA’s wellness program success. We’re proud of the program we’ve been able to provide for our organization.”