August 2025 | PerfectGift Experts | 5 minute read
As healthcare costs continue to rise, employers are focusing more on preventive care to reduce claims and improve outcomes. Health and wellness programs have become a key part of this effort. These programs help lower insurance expenses, boost productivity, and support employee satisfaction.
But these programs only work when people participate. Many struggle with low engagement, lack of ongoing involvement, and unclear incentives.
PerfectGift’s programs offer a simple and flexible solution. Our gift cards motivate employees to get started and help maintain long-term behavior changes.
Why Participation in Wellness Programs Matters
Stronger participation in wellness programs leads to healthier employees, fewer absences, and reduced healthcare costs. Many employees face barriers like low motivation, busy schedules, or a lack of understanding about the benefits. These challenges make it hard to build momentum.
Tangible rewards like gift cards help change that. They create a clear and immediate reason to engage, making it easier to take the first step and stick with it.
How Gift Cards Enhance Wellness Initiatives
Gift cards provide instant motivation and can be easily customized to match individual goals or company-wide efforts. They work well across a wide range of wellness activities. These include:
Health screenings
- Offering a gift card reward for completing annual physicals or biometric screenings encourages timely preventive care and improves early detection rates.
Step or activity challenges
- Incentivizing step counts or workout goals with gift cards keeps employees moving and adds a sense of accomplishment to daily activity.
Nutritional workshops
- Participants who receive gift cards for attending healthy eating sessions are more likely to apply what they learn, especially when the reward can be used at grocery stores or wellness brands.
Mental health check-ins
- Encouraging employees to attend mindfulness sessions or virtual therapy with gift card incentives helps normalize mental health care and reduce stigma.
Smoking cessation or weight loss programs
- Tying rewards to key milestones in these long-term efforts gives participants extra motivation to stay committed through challenging phases.
Examples of Successful Implementation
Many companies already use gift cards to support wellness participation. Here are a few real-world examples:
Fitness Milestones
- Track your steps for 30 days and earn a $25 gift card.
Preventive Care
- Get your annual physical and receive a $50 prepaid Visa card.
Mental Wellness
- Join three mindfulness sessions and claim a digital gift card.
Company-Wide Challenges
- Create team-based wellness challenges with tiered gift card rewards. This encourages collaboration and builds friendly competition.
Why Organizations Choose PerfectGift
PerfectGift.com makes it easy to reward employees wherever they are. Whether your team is remote, hybrid, or on-site, you can deliver digital or physical gift cards with confidence.
The platform offers:
A wide selection of gift cards including Visa, health-focused retailers, and nutritious food brands.
- This variety ensures employees can choose rewards that align with their personal wellness goals and lifestyles.
Custom-branded cards that reflect your company values.
- Branded gift cards help reinforce your wellness messaging while creating a more personalized and professional experience.
Easy ordering, bulk fulfillment, and real-time tracking.
- Program administrators can manage campaigns efficiently, with clear visibility into delivery and redemption status.
Integration with HRIS and wellness platforms.
- Seamless connections to existing systems make it easy to automate rewards and track participation without adding extra steps.
Best Practices for Driving Participation with Gift Cards
To get the best results from gift card rewards, start with a clear strategy:
Define measurable goals tied to each incentive.
- Clear benchmarks, like completing a health screening or logging weekly steps, help employees understand exactly what they need to do to earn a reward.
Choose gift card values that are meaningful and sustainable.
- The amount should be enough to motivate action without straining your budget, striking a balance between impact and scalability.
Promote your program through email, intranet, mobile apps, and signage.
- Consistent communication across multiple platforms increases awareness and ensures all employees know how to participate.
Recognize achievements publicly when appropriate.
- Celebrating milestones through newsletters or team shoutouts builds momentum and encourages others to join.
Use participation data to improve and expand your program.
- Tracking engagement helps identify what’s working and provides insight into how to enhance future wellness efforts.
Measurable Impact of Incentivized Wellness
Gift card incentives lead to real results. Thoughtfully deployed financial rewards can significantly improve engagement, foster sustained behavior change, and deliver tangible health and cost benefits. These real-world outcomes underscore the power of gift card incentives to produce measurable ROI, improved engagement, and cultural benefits within wellness initiatives.
A mid-sized national employer implemented a structured incentive program: employees received $20 for completing biometric screenings and another $20 for meeting personalized health goals (such as weight loss or regular exercise) over several months. In the non-incentivized baseline, only about 20% participated in screenings. With incentives, participation soared—some employers reported a more than 50% increase in completion rates. 1
A study from Brigham Young University tracked participation in six-week wellness challenges among employees choosing between cash bonuses, gift cards, or tangible rewards of equal value. Though 60% preferred cash, gift card recipients were approximately 25% more likely to complete the challenge. Researchers attributed this to gift cards offering both hedonic value and flexibility.
A global logistics company with over 45,000 employees partnered with WellSteps to run fitness and nutrition challenges tied to gift card rewards. Employees participating via an app, tracking health goals and engaging in group campaigns were rewarded with gift cards based on milestones. The program boosted participation and contributed to measurable reductions in healthcare costs and benefits spending.
Conclusion
Gift cards are a powerful tool for increasing engagement in wellness programs. They help employees take action and stay motivated over time.
When used strategically, gift cards support healthier behaviors and stronger program outcomes.
Visit PerfectGift.com to learn how to create a gift card rewards program that supports your health and wellness goals.
