Creating Motivation and Adherence for Employee Walking Programs

Worksite wellness programs are great ways to offer incentive based exercise that can enhance health and wellness for employees. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that suggests these programs are beneficial and produce some really great outcomes. Participation incentives are commonly used in these kind of exercise programs to encourage and reward participation. What is interesting is that we don't always know the intrapersonal reasons as to why people participate in in these kind of programs. The purpose of the study was to investigate Causality Orientations Theory as it relates to the experiences and outcomes of participants enrolled in an incentivized employee walking program.

Causality Orientations Theory poses three different tendencies at work in regulating intentional behaviors. Self-determined, or autonomous behaviors are motivated by one’s self-awareness of needs and goals, and contain a high degree of choice. Applied to exercise behaviors, the idea that individuals vary in their behavioral regulation tendencies gives insight into different ways that exercise programs could be adjusted to appeal to individual preferences. For example, the use of rewards for exercise program completion milestones might be an important motivator for some orientations, but not others. On one hand, exercise program administrators can adjust program elements to enhance short-term program approach and participation from individuals experiencing various orientations. However, a long-term goal in considering causality orientation in exercise might be to ultimately facilitate exercise environments that promote autonomously-regulated behaviors that might result in lasting adherence.

While incentives have been associated with success measures in exercise programs compared to non-incentivized programs, there remains a need to make these programs more inviting to participants. Considering that behavior regulation and motivation vary between individuals, it is important to include these intrapersonal factors in programs that aim to facilitate exercise behaviors. Given that incentives are commonly included in exercise program formats, we hope to identify ways in which these specific types of programs serve individuals with varying levels of causality orientations. This study investigated Causality Orientations Theory as it relates to the experiences and outcomes of participants in an exercise incentive program that offered rewards for a target number of steps walked.

The current study showed that exercise incentive programs are associated with increased activity frequency, but might not have a carry-over effect for other activity types. Similar to previous findings, the effectiveness of incentivizing specific behaviors can be a useful consideration in designing exercise programs. However, the current study also supports previous findings that these immediate effects are limited. Our study also supports the idea that different exercise causality orientations can result in preferences for different exercise program styles and exercise behavior outcomes. This comparison illustrates important differences in perceptions and outcomes of participants in the same program.

Determining how exercise causality orientation is related to selection of exercise type and/or exercise frequency may improve participation in exercise incentive programs, and more importantly, improve the health and well-being of those who participate in the programs. To read the full article, you can check it out here. ECO, Motivation, Adherence in Walking Programs