We Found a 42% Increase After One Common Wellness Activity

When we looked at employee behavior following completion of a health risk assessment, one number immediately stood out: activity records increased 42.4% in the post-HRA period.

That was not the only change.

Across 2,661 HRA completers in the published analysis, combined active days increased 33.6%. Average steps per active day increased 8.5%. The number of employees reporting sleep data increased 75.7%.

The most interesting movement, though, was in manual activity. Manually tracked activity records increased 139%, and manually tracked active days increased 105.7%.

Why do we care about that distinction?

A connected device can record data in the background. That information is useful, but it does not necessarily tell us that an employee intentionally engaged with the program. Manually logging an activity, setting a goal, joining a challenge, choosing a pathway, or taking another deliberate action requires more attention.

That made us look more closely at what happens immediately after an HRA.

Our working idea is that personalized health information can create a short period when an employee is more attentive to their health and more receptive to a next step.

We call this a Key Activation Window.

The important point is not “HRAs increase engagement.” Our analysis was pre/post and did not include a verified non-completer comparison group, so we cannot definitively say the HRA caused the increase.

But the pattern is strong enough to ask a useful strategic question:

What happens immediately after your employee finishes the HRA?

If the answer is “they get their score and leave,” there may be a missed opportunity.

A better sequence might be:

Immediately: provide one personalized next-step recommendation.

Within the first week: send a simple prompt tied to the most relevant risk or opportunity.

In the second week: recommend one tracker, habit, challenge, or behavior prompt.

In the first month: guide the employee toward a pathway or personal goal.

In the second month: reinforce progress and point to the next action.

The HRA then becomes more than a completed requirement. It becomes a transition point.

That is the larger lesson we took from the analysis. When an employee's attention increases, the organization should already know where to direct it.

The best time to design the next step is not after the HRA campaign ends. It is before the first employee ever completes it.

The measurement implication is just as important as the campaign implication.

If you use an HRA, build the post-completion metrics before launch. Track whether results were viewed, whether a recommended action was opened, the time to the first next action, manual versus passive activity, and whether employees returned at 30, 60, and 90 days. That turns the HRA from a completion metric into an activation experiment.

Even if the results are modest, you learn where momentum appears and where it disappears.

The useful question becomes not simply “How many employees completed the assessment?” but “What did completion make possible next?”

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