Quick Summary: Health communication providers often play a game of teeter-totter: On the up side, sometimes they deliver information that they hope will empower employees to make their own decisions. On the other upswing, sometimes they get more direct and include blunt calls to action. Either way, it’s wise to understand persuasive techniques.
If participation in your wellness events, health care initiatives, or other efforts needs a boost, how can you make that happen? Forced compliance is probably out of the question (unless you want to be known as the health police, and not to mention that it may be illegal under current HIPAA regulations), and you certainly don’t want to be deceptive.
These 4 techniques are more subtle and often effective:
1. SMALL GAINS
DESCRIPTION: Ask for something small, and then, when you receive it, ask for something bigger. A small agreement creates a bond between the requester and the “requestee.”
EXPLANATION: Improving health and well-being seems like a daunting task for many people. That’s why it’s not advisable to “shoot for the moon” and expect through-the-roof participation or extraordinary results, especially for a new wellness program. Instead of challenging employees to, say, lose 10% of their body weight, encourage more minor successes and intermittent goal-setting. One healthy move often begets larger, more significant ones.
2. SCARCITY PRINCIPLE
DESCRIPTION: The ability to choose is an important freedom. If something becomes scarce, we anticipate possible regret that we didn’t acquire it, and so we desire it more.
EXPLANATION: This principle is used in sales all the time (“Sale Ends Today!” “While Supplies Last”). Of course, health isn’t a “limited time offer,” but you could offer an incentive to a certain number of people who sign up early for a health assessment or yoga class. You could also try crafting text in a voice that intimates demand.
Persuasion 101
A recent Yale University study into persuasive communication showed, among other things, that
• The more credible and respected the sender of the message, the more likely it will elicit action.
• Two-sided arguments are highly effective. Presenting the wrong argument, and then refuting it, makes the correct argument seem even logical and desirable.
3. SOCIAL INFLUENCE
DESCRIPTION: This is a change in behavior one person causes in another, resulting from the way the changed person perceives himself or herself. Conformity plays to our sense of belonging.
EXPLANATION: You can hold a wellness-recruiting seminar that’s led by employees who share personal stories about the program’s benefits. Perhaps you can solicit “before I began” and “after I began” stories or photos from those employees, which is likely to gain a reaction of “I can do that, too!” from colleagues.
4. “ULTIMATE” TERMS
DESCRIPTION: Language can be powerful, and some words and concepts carry specific, influential meanings.
EXPLANATION: Words used in sales often appeal to basic needs, such as safety (“guarantee,” “proven”), control (“powerful,” “strong”), and understanding (“truth,” “real”). Employees want to be healthy, but perhaps even more often, the negative construction is more accurate: They don’t want to be unhealthy. You might be able to solicit action and attendance by mentioning in health communications that certain actions are “dangerous,” and that employees can take steps to “stop feeling sick,” for example. To be effective, such ultimate terms should be subtle and used sparingly.
Next Steps:
• Analyze which of these persuasive methods you currently employ, and which ones are most likely to elicit positive reaction from employees.
• The more credibility you have, the better chance your health messages will be heard (and followed). Establish greater credibility by offering valuable content and perspective that doesn’t seem like it’s “coming from the company” (pass along an interesting wellness story in a national publication, for instance).
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