Pros and Cons of Fitness Trackers for Employees

Pros of fitness trackers for employees  

Simple employee fitness trackers monitor only the number of steps the user takes, while advanced devices can track how long a person sits at their desk, their heart rate and even the quality of their sleep. The data is typically stored in the cloud; privacy settings can determine what information is visible only to the employee and what is shared with colleagues and company leaders.

Insights from the collected data can encourage employees to take better care of their health and shed light on where leadership can improve corporate wellness initiatives. These steps can pay off for both your staffers and your business.

“Employee fitness incentive programs can result in reduced absenteeism, greater worker productivity and lower employee turnover,” said Alfred Poor, former publisher of Health Tech Insider, a publication devoted to wearable health technology. “All of these factors can result in real bottom-line financial savings for employers.”

Here are some specific benefits tied to employee fitness trackers.

Fitness tracking can improve team bonds.

Workplace competition can be healthy, especially if you encourage it via an employee wellness program that involves activity tracking. For example, team members can compete to see who has the highest step count at the end of the week. In addition to increasing employee engagement, this culture of gamification can boost morale and make co-workers feel more connected. Gamification makes the workplace more fun and provides social support, thereby increasing participants’ chances of maintaining their progress.

“Many organizations find that offering wearable fitness trackers that have shareable data encourages teams to work together to reach not only corporate goals but also [personal] fitness goals,” said Jared Weitz, CEO of United Capital Source. “This drives collaboration and camaraderie amongst the team.”

Fitness tracking can lower healthcare costs.

A well-executed wellness program that involves fitness tracking can lead to lower health insurance costs for your company as employees improve their health and wellness. The Affordable Care Act even allows employers and their insurers to provide wellness incentives, such as gift cards or rate discounts, to their employees if they track their fitness.

Fitness tracking can increase attendance and retention.

Fitness trackers can uncover important findings about habits and distractions that may be affecting employees’ wellness goals and even reveal underlying health conditions. Armed with this information, employees can identify areas where they can improve their health, for both their own well-being and that of your company.

Happy employees are less likely to miss work due to physical or mental health issues, struggle with low productivity or look for a new position. By fostering a healthy workplace and reducing sick days, you have a better chance of maintaining a productive team. 

Cons of fitness trackers for employees

Not all workers want their employer involved in their health. Some feel that their health and wellness are their personal business and that their health data should not be shared with their employer, either as a matter of principle or out of concern for health-based discrimination. 

Here are some of the potential drawbacks to keep in mind before you implement activity tracking in your workplace.

Fitness tracking can cause stress for employees.

One reason to introduce corporate wellness programs and fitness tracking is to lower employee stress. However, the opposite can happen if team members become overly fixated on their health data or are discouraged by their numbers. Obsession and disappointment will increase stress, not reduce it. Further, activity trackers aren’t 100 percent accurate and could present a misleading picture of someone’s health. 

Fitness tracking can spark privacy concerns.

Employer access to employee biometric data is a gray area of legality. Improper access to employees’ health data violates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. A typical wearable fitness tracker, whether purchased personally or distributed by an employer, will not interfere with HIPAA; in fact, manufacturers like Fitbit and Apple have devoted significant efforts to ensure their devices comply with HIPAA. However, HIPAA issues come into play when a healthcare provider (or employer) asks for data collected by the device and the patient (or user) has not given permission.

>> Read Next: How Do HIPAA Laws Impact Employers?

Another privacy concern is that data collected by fitness trackers are not held in databases with the same security or regulations as those managed by doctors or hospitals, leaving them vulnerable to hacking and data breaches. Poor said the best way to deal with this is to give your employees as much information and choice as possible. 

“When I work with companies on developing [wellness] programs, I encourage them to give employees the option to opt in to the program and not force them to participate,” he said. “This gives them the choice to share their data or not.”

Fitness tracking can lead to employee discrimination.

Labor lawyers have expressed concern that employers may use fitness device data to justify promotions or pay raises or, conversely, as a reason to terminate an employee. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination based on an employee’s health status, an employer’s access to a team member’s weight, heart rate or other metrics could open that employee up to potential discrimination. 

Because many companies implement wellness programs to cut down on healthcare costs, legal professionals worry that this may lead employers to use health as an element in their decision-making, whether consciously or unconsciously. But if you make your fitness tracking program voluntary and open to the whole company, you avoid targeting any particular demographic and lowering morale by taking away the decision of whether to participate.

6 ways to promote employee health in your business

As you weigh whether to implement fitness trackers in your workplace, consider these ways you can promote employee health.

1. Develop your fitness tracking program carefully.

Before you implement a fitness tracker program, you should have a plan in place. “You can’t just buy a bunch of fitness bands, hand them out and then expect to get gains,” Poor said. 

To ensure your program starts off on the right foot, begin with a thorough assessment of your employees, their health risks and what they want in an activity-tracking initiative. Design the program around their responses, and develop a clear set of wellness goals for the team, including how you will help staffers achieve those goals. 

“Consider looking for discounted gym memberships that you can offer your employees,” Weitz said. “Look at your office as an opportunity — install standing desks, conduct ergonomic assessments, and stock break rooms with healthy foods and beverages.”

Be sure to budget for these efforts appropriately by taking into account incentives for meeting fitness goals and resources for employees who may need extra encouragement throughout the process. Also, for the program to work well and not violate any laws, you’ll need to develop strategies for keeping the collected data secure and set guidelines for how you’ll monitor it.

2. Facilitate active team building.

Foster team bonding and engagement by planning active outings with your employees, such as playing casual sports games, participating in community walks and runs, or scheduling a visit from a dietitian or nutritionist. You can even host an annual health fair.

3. Ask for suggestions.

Send surveys to see what your employees want in their company wellness program. After you implement the program, use follow-up surveys to collect feedback. This way, you can ensure you’re meeting their needs and avoid alienating part of your workforce.

4. Prevent burnout by tracking hours.

A business that can support overtime may be doing well financially, but extra hours can take a toll on employees and their health. The more hours someone works, the more stress can accumulate. As a result, workers may experience high stress levels and end up burning out. 

Activity trackers, top employee monitoring software, highly-rated time and attendance programs, and project management tools can help you ensure that workloads are evenly shared and that no one is being overworked. In addition, urging team members to take time off can help prevent burnout, emotional escalations and unnecessary trips to the doctor.

5. Send health newsletters or set up meetings.

Chances are, most of your employees don’t have a degree in health and nutrition, so it’s vital to educate employees on the effects of bad health habits such as poor posture, excessive screen time, and reliance on caffeine or alcohol. Sending employees a regular health-focused newsletter and presenting wellness tips in monthly company meetings are easy ways to educate your team.

6. Encourage vaccines and screenings.

If your business provides employees with health insurance, it’s wise to encourage your workers to take advantage of (often free) preventive care. You can also offer screenings and vaccines at your office so employees don’t have to take time out of their schedule to make an appointment, juggle an appointment during their workday, or go alone.

Fitness tracking can be beneficial, but employees may not think you’re serious about their health if you don’t provide support. You can promote wellness within your company culture by showing you genuinely care about your staff’s health. Provide healthy snacks, offer education on healthy habits, and explain how activity tracking is about building a healthier work culture. An improvement in the health of your people will be an improvement in the health of your business.

Kimberlee Leonard and Kiely Kuligowski contributed to this article. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.