The Frequency

Two things move this, and only one of them is the message. The first is time. Where a screening or a check-up can only be reached by using annual leave or an evening, uptake follows shift pattern and income, and the people you most hoped to reach are the ones who do not go. Paid time inside the working day, booked like any other appointment, takes the calculation away.

The second is restraint about measurement. We do not ask who attended or track individual take-up, and we say so plainly when the offer goes out. Anything that reads as monitoring turns a benefit into an inspection, and health is the area where people notice that shift quickest.

So the message stays narrow. Here is the time, here is how to book it, and nobody is keeping a list. What anyone does with it sits between them and their own doctor.

Sarah Gray, HR Director, Cintra

“The most effective incentive for preventive care may be making it genuinely convenient to say yes.” In my experience as a physician and longevity-focused clinician, people rarely skip routine care because they have never heard that prevention matters. They skip it because a screening can mean arranging childcare, losing work time, or trying to fit an appointment into an already crowded week. The single policy I would prioritize is protected, no-hassle paid time for preventive appointments, communicated simply and without requiring employees to justify what type of care they are receiving. “When preventive care requires employees to sacrifice time or privacy, the workplace is quietly creating the barrier it is trying to remove.” A cash reward or wellness contest may create a temporary spike, but reducing the practical cost of getting care addresses the behavior itself. The key is to frame the policy as support rather than surveillance: your health is your business, and taking time to maintain it is treated as legitimate work-life time. That distinction matters because participation is more likely to become routine when employees feel enabled rather than managed.

Dr. Pablo Prichard, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon & Longevity Expert | Co-Founder, Vincere Cancer Center | Founder, AAA Plastic Surgery | Host, Forever Young TV, Vincere Cancer Center

The thing that finally moved participation for us was removing the appointment from the employee’s personal time budget. We give a paid half day, no questions asked, for an annual checkup or screening. It is not framed as a wellness perk. It is on the same page of the handbook as jury duty, which sends the message that this is normal life admin the company expects you to handle, not a behavior we are grading.

Before that, we tried the usual gift card push and got maybe a third of the team. Once the paid time went in, we were over 80 percent within two years, and it has held.

The second piece is who sends the message. When it came from me as CEO, it felt like surveillance. Now our office manager sends one short note in January listing the local clinics and their Saturday hours, and that is it. No follow-up nagging, no tracking who booked. I also say out loud in a team meeting that I got mine done and it took an hour. Eleven employees means people notice.

What I would avoid is anything that ties premiums or bonuses to completion. That is where it stops feeling supportive and starts feeling like a penalty in a costume.

Rick Elmore

Founder and CEO, Simply Noted (simplynoted.com)

Rick Elmore, CEO, Simply Noted

At Swift Printing, we’re a production business with real deadlines, so the biggest barrier is usually time, not attitude. As a Certified B Corp, we try to make “people first” show up in policies, not posters.

The single thing I’d recommend is paid preventive-care appointment time that does not come out of vacation or sick time. No gift card, no contest, no public tracking.

The message matters: “Please take care of the appointment, tell us when you’ll be out, and we’ll cover the work.” Managers should not ask what the appointment is for.

My community-event brain says: remove friction and people participate. If you want checkups and screenings to happen, make the path boring, private, and easy to schedule.

Jessica Gutowski-Slaydon, President, Swift Printing

Provide paid preventative medical care hours. The idea is to allow your employees four hours per year to be used at their doctor’s offices for whatever reason. (That should be enough to cover anyone’s physicals, yearly blood work, dental cleaning, etc.) You can mandate advanced appointments or let people walk in. The goal is to provide this time to your employees without them having to use vacation hours or PTO.

For us, we didn’t announce it heavily. We didn’t mention a thing until a few days before employees would be able to start using their providers. Then we sent out a quick email that said essentially, “Hey, it’s okay to take your preventative care day(s). We’ll cover it. That’s why you work here.” We did send another email mid-July to ensure everyone used their 2014 hours.

That worked like a charm. People made appointments to see their PCPs and dentists on their own initiative.

Lo Choe, Founder and Fire/Electrical Safety Contractor, Aura Fire Safety

The best way to encourage preventive care is to frame it around support and convenience, not correction.

Employees can become defensive if the message sounds like, “You should be doing this.” A better message is: “We want to make it easier for you to take care of routine health needs before they become harder to manage.” That keeps the tone respectful and removes judgment.

One policy that can sustainably increase participation is offering paid preventive care time separate from sick leave. For example, employees can use a few hours each year for checkups, screenings, vaccinations, dental visits, or lab work without having to explain personal medical details.

The key is to make the benefit simple: “You have paid time each year for preventive health appointments. Use it before you need sick time.”

This works because it removes a practical barrier. Many employees do not skip preventive care because they do not care; they skip it because scheduling is difficult, they do not want to lose pay, or they feel awkward asking for time off.

For frontline or deskless teams, the policy should be paired with shift-friendly communication: short reminders before enrollment periods, supervisor talking points, QR codes for booking resources, and repeated messages around common screening windows.

The important boundary is privacy. Managers should never ask what appointment someone is attending or whether they completed a screening. The company can encourage preventive care, provide time, and share resources, but the employee’s health decisions remain personal.

My view is that the most effective incentive is neither a prize nor a pressure campaign. It is reducing friction. When employees have paid time, clear information, and no judgment, participation becomes more natural, and trust stays intact.

Vlad Bodea, Co-Founder & Board Member, Bento

Give everyone a few hours per year (outside of SLC) to go visit their doctor to get a checkup/appropriate screenings they feel they want to take. This removes one barrier to take care of themselves on their off time. Though it also helps people feel easy to say “nope” to going to the doctor without fear that they look like they are having a medical emergency or something (as far as I can tell the real reason this exists in a lot of companies was so employees couldn’t use sick days to visit a doctor, which is pretty bad in general anyways.)

And most importantly if you just tell them “Hey guys I spent some extra money so that you can have someone check you for problems and it won’t cost you anything” then nobody thinks to ask why you are getting vaccines for everything, why do you have that condition, why do you need to see 20 different specialists when we shouldn’t question paying for this; vs if you say “Here these are yours for next year or I have to write it off” then they feel like they are being strong armed into getting X amount of healthcare rather than presented with an opportunity they are free to utilize.

Devlyn Steele, Chief Operating Officer & Director of Education, Augusta Precious Metals

In my experience, in a small company, if you need a check-up (and everyone needs one at least once), you don’t worry about your colleagues’ perceptions as long as you take the same time as everyone else and do it in a timely manner. The idea is to avoid having any kind of discussion at all or having it seem weird to the employer. For example, if you decide to do some kind of medical procedures that may require an absence from your daily routine, make it so that you are not taking the day off; you just have an extra day (sooner or later), and nobody notices you are doing something different. Or, if you just have a normal schedule (but you want a longer one to do things differently), tell your boss: “Hey, I think it would be best if we start early Monday.” Then, you can go get your check-up without worrying about anything (since the boss knows what he has to do and does not have to worry about it). You don’t need to justify yourself for this; in most cases, this kind of action is considered something normal and routine in small companies (I guess). Anyway, the key is to do it without getting into discussions (unless there are problems regarding insurance/healthcare, etc.).

Alfred Pintor, Founder and Owner, Copper Collar Services