Improving productivity and resilience at work: Assessing the use self-regulation techniques to enhance effectiveness of corporate wellness initiatives

Abstract

The recognition of relationship between employee health and business profitability and reputation has resulted in a steady growth in corporate well-being programs aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors. Despite companies spending close to $800 per employee, as a substantive portion of one’s daily actions are accounted for by habitual behaviors these wellness initiatives have a limited rate of success. By applying insights from habit research, this study aimed to determine (1) if embedding a combination of mental contrasting and implementation intentions into wellness initiatives aimed at behavioral habits change among professionals could improve their efficacy; and (2) if habit change process was subject to one’s self-control. Given the global pandemic environment of 2020, the training was carried out online and took a form of an animated webinar with a nonobtrusive short questionnaire intervention. Analysis of results revealed that, contrary to expectations, there was no significant difference in the magnitude of change in habit strength over the two-week period between the intervention (n = 54) and the control (n = 56) groups. A number of possible explanations for null findings are discussed, including the breakdown in the basic context-response mechanism that underlies habit formation as a consequence of routine disruptions during COVID-19. The results also indicated that one’s self-control capacity did not affect the habit formation process, which could indicate that habit change does not operate through self-control or be another consequence of the pandemic hindering one’s ability to use situational strategies of self-control. Limitations, other potential moderators in the formation of habits, implications of these findings for health behavior change in shifting contexts and future directions for research on wellness interventions are discussed. I conclude that to promote greater adherence to health behavior targets in unstable environments one may require a more flexible and/or frequent approach to address motivation and volition, with greater emphasis on the underlying goals.