The single biggest predictor of a wellness program's year-one participation rate isn't the program itself - it's whether the first two weeks of comms landed. Most rollout plans send one all-company email and call it done. Here is what tends to work better.
Message one: what counts, stated plainly
Employees who assume "wellness benefit" means gym membership will skip the email. Lead with the inclusion point directly: walking, cycling, and swimming all count today, with more activity types on the way. State it before you explain tokens, portals, or reimbursement mechanics.
Message two: what the company does and doesn't see
Adoption stalls when employees suspect a new app is a surveillance tool. Say explicitly, in the first week, that the employer only ever sees aggregated tokens and reimbursable value - never which activities anyone did, never individual health data. This single sentence, said early and plainly, removes the most common reason employees hesitate to connect a device.
Message three: a two-minute setup nudge, one week later
A second, shorter message in week two - after the novelty of message one has worn off - targeting employees who haven't yet connected a device or logged an activity, tends to recover a meaningful share of the "meant to sign up" group.
The mistake to avoid
Don't frame the launch around competition (leaderboards, team challenges) as the primary hook. It re-creates the same exclusion problem inclusive design is meant to solve - it rewards people who were already inclined to compete about fitness, and quietly signals to everyone else that the program isn't for them.
Want the full template with subject lines and send-time recommendations? Book a demo and we'll share what's worked for other launches.