Enhancing workplace wellness with digital health coaching

The hidden cost and reasons behind employee health inertia

Despite generous investments in workplace wellness programs, employee engagement remains discouragingly low. U.S. Department of Labor data reveals only 20%-40% of eligible employees actively participate in traditional wellness initiatives, leaving the majority of the workforce—and their associated health risks—untouched.

This participation gap translates directly to escalating healthcare costs, with employers facing average annual increases of 6.5% per employee heading into 2026. The fundamental problem isn't a lack of wellness resources—it's the absence of sustained behavior change.

Employees know they should exercise, eat well and try to manage stress, yet the difference between knowing and doing is substantial. Their reasons for not making positive, sustained changes to improve their wellness are varied, nuanced and include but are not limited to:

• Financial constraints
• Environmental and social barriers
• Lack of motivation or accountability
• Unrealistic goals or discouragement when progress is slower than desired
• Misconceptions or misinformation from people who aren’t experts
• Limited understanding on what to do or where to begin
• Anxiety about all the changes they believe are required

Traditional wellness programs sometimes provide information without transformation, offering gym memberships that go unused and health screenings that fail to catalyze lasting change. Without personalized support and accountability structures, even motivated employees struggle to translate good intentions into consistent healthy behaviors.

The result is a workforce burdened by preventable conditions like diabetes, hypertension and obesity that diminish productivity, increase absenteeism and drive healthcare utilization.

Bridging the gap between awareness and action by combining technology and health coaching

Health coaching is credited with increasing productivity, enhancing employee engagement and satisfaction, ultimately improving health outcomes. Health coaches are trained and credentialed members of the healthcare team specializing in the behavior change process by helping employees:

• Understand their health risks
• Take meaningful steps toward improvement
• Stay motivated with encouragement and expert guidance

They’re partners and supporters, empowering clients to use their personal strengths and resources to achieve self-determined wellness goals. Health coaching helps individuals identify their own strengths and values, allowing them to create a meaningful wellness vision.

But employers need solutions that move beyond awareness campaigns to create measurable, sustainable health improvements. The gap between offering wellness benefits and achieving meaningful health outcomes requires a different approach—one that combines human expertise with technology-enabled engagement to meet employees where they are, when they need support and in ways that fit their daily lives.

This is where digital health coaching demonstrates its unique value proposition. Technology plays a larger role than ever in almost every industry, including employee wellness programs and health coaching. Digital-technology-enabled (DT) coaching involves interactions between a real coach and an employee.

A DT coaching platform enhances the experience with tools for goal setting and habit tracking, access to on-demand health education resources and more. Additionally, DT coaching platforms provide a means of measuring health outcomes, creating a personalized, engaging experience.

Introducing our Digital Health Education Engagement Platform

Combining self-reflection with goal setting creates a powerful synergy. Reflection helps you identify what matters most, while goals provide a roadmap to act on those insights. This combination can lead to:

Labcorp Employer Services is set to launch a new DT coaching platform this month. It includes:

Trackers. Tracking habits and metrics where you can see progress on a dashboard helps motivate and increase self-awareness. Tracking encourages consistency while enhancing accountability. Viewing trends and patterns over time on weight, blood glucose, blood pressure, mood and hydration provides health coaches with key information to make suggestions and help participants set meaningful goals using timely data. Our platform also integrates with popular health apps and Bluetooth devices. 

Personal health habits. The ‘Jump Start Your Healthy Habits’ feature offers interactive personal challenges and tool kits that encourage your employees to take action. These challenges can last one week or a full month, with multiple phases, taking them step-by-step through the change process in any specific area. Whether your employees want to get moving, restart their healthy habits, reduce substance use or tame anxiety, they will learn strategies to help them maintain healthy changes long after the challenge ends.

Wellness reminders and to-dos. Your employees have the ability to create their own email reminders at a frequency of their choice, keeping them on point with everything from putting down a cigarette to going for a walk to getting ready for bed. This helps increase mindfulness and prompts them to take actionable steps. The to-do feature allows their coach to assign tasks to them and send them reminders between coaching visits. All of this appears on their dashboard along with their goals and wellness vision.

Education courses and health library. Educational content allows your employees access to timely, relevant and comprehensive content on a broad range of health topics. Whether they have time for a one-hour seminar or a two-minute quick read, they can explore hundreds of informative topics on health conditions and healthy living, changing behaviors, improving quality of life and more.

The best part is your employees will continue to interact with their health coach via telephone and email since the platform is designed to enhance the health coaching experience—not reduce the personal touch. By introducing your employees to the Digital Health Education Engagement Platform, you can welcome them into the new year—and an exciting new adventure.

DT Platforms reduce costs and improve health outcomes

Digital health coaching platforms deliver measurable results that resonate across financial, clinical and operational metrics. Some studies have shown organizations implementing comprehensive DT coaching programs have seen a $757 decrease in health care costs per employee.

Additional estimated cost savings per employee per year included:

• $313 for inpatient costs
• $274 for outpatient costs
• $152 for professional services
• $71 for pharmacy costs

The clinical evidence for digital health coaching also demonstrates significant, sustained improvements across key biometric markers. Participants with prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes show average HbA1c reductions of 0.8%-1.2%—clinically significant decreases that translate to reduced complication risk and lower medication requirements.

Other studies show hypertensive employees achieve average blood pressure reductions of 8-12 mmHg systolic and 5-7 mmHg diastolic, bringing many participants into controlled ranges. Weight management outcomes prove equally compelling, with engaged participants losing an average of 5%-7% of body weight and maintaining 60%-70% of that loss at 12 months, far exceeding traditional wellness program results.

These improvements aren't abstract health gains; they represent employees moving from high-risk to moderate-risk categories, directly impacting medical claims costs and productivity.