FAQs

•         What participation levels have you seen?  Most of our clients average around 75%.  Yep.  ACTIVE engagement.  We don't mess around with website hits or other nebulous measurements.  We measure behavior change, both verified and self-reported, with an emphasis on verified.

•         How do you make the program "sticky" so people stay engaged?  We have a few answers to that.  One, we have DAILY challenges.  Each day, all year long, we're getting people to step outside their comfort zones or re-think their healthy behaviors.  We also launch our "add-on" programs in waves.  The program is a social one - people are awarding each other for healthy behaviors, and peer pressure and competition play a huge part in having people hold each other accountable.  The real key is that it's fun.  It's engaging.  People WANT to participate.

•         What if our employees don't have computer access?  Candidly, the program works best if they do.  But if they don't, we have some solutions.  A wall-hanging calendar has the daily challenges.  The Sonic Boom website is accessible from any computer (kiosk, home, or co-worker), and leaderboards for competitions can be printed daily by a supervisor or wellness leader to provide inspiration and motivation for team members who are competing.  Incentives are tangible awards, assuring appropriate bragging rights at work.

•         Why don't you do coaching?  Coaching is one-on-one, private, and appeals mostly to women.  It gets limited participation and engagement.  It doesn't inspire culture change. It's passive and invisible to others, and some people actually feel penalized when they're "induced" to participate.  While it CAN be extremely effective for a small segment of the population, we choose to leave coaching to coaching specialists and disease management companies.

•         How do you feel about punitive incentives?  We find that the stick, as opposed to the carrot, creates a culture of resentment and unintended consequences (low morale).  We're more into carrots than sticks (and while sticks offer great fiber, carrots are good for the eyes...)

•         Should we include part-timers and temps?  Yeah, we'd say you should.  Because when they see the fun everyone else is having, they're going to want to join in. Temps may be pushing it, but your part-timers will groan if they have to sit on the sidelines.

•         How much work does this require on the part of the employer?  Not much.  We've made this turnkey on purpose.  We know you don't need more on your to-do list, so we've made it easy -- the program runs itself. 

•         Can you accommodate sales people or people who work remotely?  Sure.  Our Challenge-of-the-Day works nationwide.  For Sonic Striding we have special, low-cost receivers that wirelessly track up to 20 users.  Weight-Loss Warriors can be done remotely, although remote participants would need to do a verified weigh-in at the beginning and end in order to be eligible for the contest. Ask us about the specific issues you have, and we'll make recommendations for you.

•         What if we have multiple locations?  Our program is accessible anywhere, and works especially well for companies with small clusters of employees in multiple locations.  Often, these folks can feel disconnected, and our program helps bond them to the rest of the company. 

•         How do you measure results?  Sonic Boom is positioned to measure verified, meaningful results.  In any ROI model, the main variables are participation and behavior change.  Without either, results are negligible.   Ongoing participation leads to sustained behavior change, which leads to biometric improvement, which leads to physiological improvement, which leads to lower health care utilization, increased productivity, lower absenteeism, and boosted morale. We specifically track the most important elements - participation levels, participant satisfaction, and key behavior changes:

•        Verified Weight-Loss

•        Verified Physical Activity - walking, running, calories, distance, duration

•        Verified daily challenge completion - stress, fitness, nutrition, weight

•        Nutrition enhancement

•        Hydration improvement

•        Increased fruit/veggie intake

•        Self-reported stress reduction

•        Self-reported productivity enhancement and boosted morale

We also offer "mini assessments" throughout our program that clients can tailor.  For instance -- if you want to know if prescription drug use has decreased, if activity has increased, has there been weight-loss, or an increase in productivity -- we can do mini assessments at any time (self-reported data). 

•         Your program seems on the fringe; does it really work?  I know it seems a program has to be more clinical in order to be "real" or effective.  Yet we're seeing up to 95% participation, with immediate improvements in biometrics.  In fact, it's really because our program is NOT clinical that it works.   We don't treat people as health care patients; we treat them as unique people.

•         What kind of reporting do you offer?  We're well aware that reporting is key - not just for administrators/employers, but for users, too.  We have recently upgraded our system to provide several reporting tools to help measure engagement, lifestyle improvement, and dozens of other variables.

•         Can you share data with disease management companies or health plans?  Yes, we are able to stratify the population based on Health Quality Assessment data and enable targeted, high-risk interventions by complementary vendors/health plans.

•         Is your program HIPAA-compliant?  Absolutely.

•         Can we get references?  Of course.  Please ask.  All of our clients have offered to be references for us.

•         How much time out of an employee's day does the program take?  Five maybe 10 minutes.  Most activities can be done while working, and logging the activity is simple and brief.  We know you don't want your employees messing around all day -- we've made our site utilitarian -- it's not THAT cool!  Five to ten minutes should do it.

•         Can families participate?  PLEASE!  We love to hear that our clients have employees' family members participating.  Surveys of our participants show that nearly all of them take the information and activities home to share with the family.  Sonic Striding and the cookbook submissions are especially fun for family members.  Envision it -- Family Jones vs. Family Smith for Sonic Striding -- it can be fun and bonding, while promoting better health habits.

•         How do you keep the program exciting with a multi-year commitment?  We have several ways to keep our programs fresh and exciting year after year.  Our programs are modular, and can be done in waves several times per year  Clients can set the length of contests, and hold them as often as they'd like. 

We're constantly innovating.  If it isn't working, it's gone.  If it sounds like a good suggestion, we're there.  We listen to our clients, and rely on feedback to offer continuous improvement.