Health Fair Connections Blog

Better Turnout for Biometric Screenings (Biometrics + Health Fair = Better Turnout For Both)

Posted on Saturday November 12 2016

With The Case Study to Prove it...

Hr managers, benefits professionals, health fair planners, biometric screeners and anyone else reading this post - I think we can all agree that preventive healthcare is the best healthcare.

Am I right or am I right?

Now, if you're in HR/wellness and plan health fairs for your employees, or if you're a benefits broker (or 3rd-party health fair planner) assisting your groups/clients with their health fairs, then you most likely know what I'm referring to when I say "biometrics."

For those of you that do not know what I'm referring to, below are some of the biometric (preventive) screenings you typically see scheduled onsite at workplace locations:

• Glucose
• Blood pressure
• Cholesterol
• Bone Density
• BMI

I'm not the only one who sees the benefit. Check out this article from HealthStatus in regards to getting the most out of your employee health fair by pairing it with screenings.

So, I have personally worked with hundreds of HR, insurance reps, and benefits teams in regards to coupling their employee health fair with biometrics screenings. I have also helped plan numerous health fairs where they schedule the screenings on a different date for the health fair.

And from experience, I would say you see at least a 20% increase in both the health fair and biometric screening employee participation when both events are coordinated together.

Let me explain why....

No one truly wants to get picked and prodded, only to have someone point out the areas of health you need to work on. So, telling your employees that biometric screenings will be the "event" for today is not going to be very compelling. HealthAdvocate Solutions also discusses the advantages of onsite biometric screenings. 

So, I'm not saying that you shouldn't have them at your workplace. I'm saying that they aren't very fun or appealing to employees, so plan them with a health fair to max out your employee participation.

Now, of course, some employees realize the need and value of getting these screenings, and these employees don't take much convincing. 

But for a lot of your employees, it's going to be like trying to pull a horse to water.

However, if you couple these screenings with a health fair, you can picture your new sales pitch (so to speak) - "Hey employees, our event today is a health fair! Attend to get healthy food samples, free massages, get your insurance questions answered, and knock out your biometric screenings while you're there!"

See how much more appealing (and less intimidating) that sounds to your employees?

Now, this part is critical when selecting your biometric vendor - they have to be okay with taking walk-ups (and most do). 

Meaning, you're going to get employees that came to the health fair, were not signed up for a time frame for screenings, but change their mind and decide to get them. I saw this happen EVERY time at the health fairs I attended that had biometric screenings as well.

Not to mention, you're going to have some folks who just want to get their screenings completed, yet decided to attend and visit other vendors in the health fair. This would never happen for some of your employees if the screenings were on a different date for the health fair.  

So, want to see some actual numbers and evidence?

Click the picture below to take you to a page where you can download the case study from INC Research's corporate office health fair in Raleigh, North Carolina:

Keep this mind when it comes time to plan your health fair and plan your biometric screenings.

Please feel free to comment or share this post.

Thanks for reading!

Kyle Pickett

LinkedIn
Twitter