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Fitbit: employer penalties for not using.

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  • BigGuy47
    BigGuy47 Posts: 1,768 Member
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    Many employers... hmmm.

    Our company does.a walking challenge every year. It's for fun and they offer prizes. What sort of employer punishes their workers for not walking enough?
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
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    There are trackers that aren't worn on the wrist, my Fitbit One is one of them. It's very accurate.

    I read an article the other day about activity trackers not really making someone more active. I can't say that's necessarily true for me as I'm a lot more active now than I was when I get my One for Christmas in 2012. However, if there are enough studies with that conclusion perhaps employers will give up on that particular track.

    My employer has switched the Wellness incentives they used to offer for merely getting a physical each year to one that is activity based. However, there are other things besides walking that you can do to earn the incentives so there's no penalty if you choose not to wear a tracker.
  • socioseguro
    socioseguro Posts: 1,679 Member
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    @fishgutzy
    My employer gave Fitbit HR to employees that joined a wellness challenge based on steps. Other than that, no discounts, no penalties.
    Share your sources
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
    edited October 2016
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    BigGuy47 wrote: »
    Many employers... hmmm.

    Our company does.a walking challenge every year. It's for fun and they offer prizes. What sort of employer punishes their workers for not walking enough?

    Same ones that punish their employees (via higher insurance premiums) for tobacco use?

    Insurance is increasing at a faster rate than other costan for most businesses. They will get pretty creative to lower the impact on their bottom line.

    Afrer smoking obesity is the largest preventable health hazard. Smart money to go after it. Do the trackers work, think the jury is still out.
  • Rage_Phish
    Rage_Phish Posts: 1,508 Member
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    sounds like one of those false issues people get outraged over

    can you believe people are protesting starbucks holiday cups?!?!?!??!
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
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    The OP seems like a big stretch from a couple of articles about employers giving out Fitbits and starting optional wellness challenges.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3058462/how-fitbit-became-the-next-big-thing-in-corporate-wellness
    Moreover, privacy advocates worry that wellness challenges could be used to penalize employees who decline to participate—or, worse, simply fail to succeed. Companies have increasingly used a combination of carrots (free vacation days!) and sticks (higher premiums) to coerce employees into participating in health screenings and wellness programs—a practice that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has fought with varying success. With trackers, it’s not always clear what data is being collected about employees’ health habits. "People might assume or expect that there are [privacy] protections," says the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Lee Tien, who specializes in privacy law. "But they don’t know what data is being collected." Most employers say that they only look at data in aggregate. But since HIPAA doesn’t cover wellness programs that aren’t integrated with insurers, in some cases, employees will need to take their company’s word for it.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2377723/it-strategy/pros-and-cons-of-using-fitness-trackers-for-employee-wellness.html
    As corporate healthcare costs continue to rise, observers say businesses will likely start to ask for more employee participation in wellness programs.

    "Employers are increasingly calling the shots on how employees receive their benefits -- and workers may be penalized or rewarded depending upon how they take care of themselves," writes John F. Wasik in The Fiscal Times. "That means they may be subject to regular monitoring and told to enroll in healthcare management programs."

    http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/employers-push-workers-to-wear-fitness-trackers/
    Fitness tracking devices like Fitbit and the new Apple Watch could very well become part and parcel of workplace wear, if employers get their way.

    Thousands of employers around the nation are reportedly mulling mandates for employees to wear the devices by 2018 as part of workplace wellness incentive programs and as a means of combating rising health-care costs, MarketWatch reported.

    “Tracker information will become part of your health record,” said Nancy Green, a health-care official with Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “[Employers] have a very large vested interest to make sure you’re healthy.”

    Plenty of companies already offer wellness programs that entice employees to lose weight or quit smoking. The fitness tracking, however, is a new level of employer oversight of employee health – and some critics call it overkill. But companies, concerned about rising health-care costs, in part from Obamacare mandates, say they have to get creative.

    “It’s an advantage to make employees as productive as possible,” said Malay Gandhi, managing director of health-focused venture-capital firm Rock Health, in MarketWatch.

    These articles indicate that if privacy settings on activity trackers aren't tightened up, employers have the potential to use activity trackers to penalize employees.

    Here's an example of a company using activity trackers to offer a carrot. Note that the activity tracker is not actually required, and employees can self-report:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aetna-pays-employees-to-sleep-more_us_570e78abe4b03d8b7b9f1712
    Here’s how the program works: For every 20 days an Aetna employee reports sleeping at least seven hours, he or she can earn $25 — up to $300 in total. If you don’t have a calculator handy, that would take 240 nights of good sleep.

    Employees can sync a FitBit or similar health-tracking device to the company’s wellness program platform to have their sleep automatically tracked — or they can manually enter how much they sleep each night.

    I haven't found an article about a company actually penalizing employees, and I didn't see anything about what specific companies have plans for integrating activity trackers into mandatory wellness plans by 2018.
  • Rage_Phish
    Rage_Phish Posts: 1,508 Member
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    STOP FEAR MONGERING OP!!!!!
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    These articles indicate that if privacy settings on activity trackers aren't tightened up, employers have the potential to use activity trackers to penalize employees.

    Remember, we're talking about devices that keep track of how much you walk. Some of them also claim to know how much/well you sleep but that's dubious and debatable.

    There are some jobs where it might be appropriate to penalize employees for not walking enough. Like postal delivery workers who walk around putting mail in boxes. And police who walk a beat. If your job is walking and you aren't doing it, a penalty could be in order.

    And I suppose if your job is to sit at a desk all day and your tracker shows you spent the day walking, that might conceivably raise some eyebrows. But even if your boss has access to everybody's step and time data, on an individual level, they still have to figure out how to look for patterns in it.

    Overall it's hard to imagine many employers caring.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    These articles indicate that if privacy settings on activity trackers aren't tightened up, employers have the potential to use activity trackers to penalize employees.

    Remember, we're talking about devices that keep track of how much you walk. Some of them also claim to know how much/well you sleep but that's dubious and debatable.

    There are some jobs where it might be appropriate to penalize employees for not walking enough. Like postal delivery workers who walk around putting mail in boxes. And police who walk a beat. If your job is walking and you aren't doing it, a penalty could be in order.

    And I suppose if your job is to sit at a desk all day and your tracker shows you spent the day walking, that might conceivably raise some eyebrows. But even if your boss has access to everybody's step and time data, on an individual level, they still have to figure out how to look for patterns in it.

    Overall it's hard to imagine many employers caring.

    "Have the potential" does not mean "will," and it's more a point to the questionable privacy of activity trackers than employers' true intentions. I think the people concerned about that are a bit paranoid and blowing things out of proportion.

    I genuinely can't imagine activity trackers being a mandatory component of any health care plan. It's one thing to use them as incentives for employees to stay active on their own time if they wish, but it's another thing entirely to insist employees burn x calories per day or walk x steps (to...qualify for health care? to not incur higher premiums?) To me, that's an invasion of my privacy and mandating working off the job, and employers have no right to demand that. I would find a new job if my company tried to force that on me. It's not their business how much I move, how many calories I burn, how much I sleep, or how I eat. I do take advantage of the wellbeing programs my employer offers, like gym membership reimbursement and wellness coaching. I might take a tracker if it was offered as a bonus benefit, but not if it were somehow tied to me receiving health care or my terms of employment. I think employers know how their employees would react if activity trackers were mandatory, so it will never happen :)
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    I think we should ignore "sleep tracking." A lot of the devices people use (Beth's Android Wear watch, any Apple Watch) have enough battery power to make it through a work day but need to be charged overnight. Others (like Fitbit One and other models) go in your pocket or on your belt, some of them have adapters that let you wear them to sleep but many people don't. And then there are concerns about being able to measure sleep with a motion sensor.

    I could understand feeling like this was an invasion of privacy if it were mandatory, but to my knowledge that hasn't been the case. If it's something you can choose to do for a bonus to to spend less on your insurance, I don't have a problem with that. I'll gladly hand over my step data.

    If we were talking about GPS data I'd be more concerned about privacy. But that's harder to measure and analyze; steps aren't a very useful measure but they're cheap and easy. Anyway since nobody is looking at where I went it really doesn't bother me. If my job wanted to see where I spent my off time that would be an entirely different thing.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    My company has a wellness program, and every summer we have a walking challenge. Everybody who participates gets a small bonus; larger bonuses are given out to people who walk more steps. It isn't a contest, we just hit certain numbers to get more cash. The prizes aren't huge but it's fun.

    I'm a cyclist. I like to ride 10 to 15 miles after work, it helps me unwind, gets me outdoors, and I enjoy it. My watch doesn't count steps when I'm on the bike.

    I decided not to go after the step challenge. My time on the bike is more important to me than the money. I didn't feel like I was being penalized, although I did feel like the situation was slightly unfair and arbitrary. But I think it's also great that my company cares about us as people and not just for what we can produce.
  • CipherZero
    CipherZero Posts: 1,418 Member
    edited October 2016
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    fishgutzy wrote: »
    Given that trackers are inaccurate, only track wrist movement and many other flaws, I'm surprised that many employers have started penalizing employees for not using these.

    I would start looking for a new job if my employer thinks they can micro-manage my life like this.

    THAT said, not getting rewards (monetary, gold stickers on your personnel jacket, etc.) aren't penalties.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    My company has a wellness program, and every summer we have a walking challenge. Everybody who participates gets a small bonus; larger bonuses are given out to people who walk more steps. It isn't a contest, we just hit certain numbers to get more cash. The prizes aren't huge but it's fun.

    I'm a cyclist. I like to ride 10 to 15 miles after work, it helps me unwind, gets me outdoors, and I enjoy it. My watch doesn't count steps when I'm on the bike.

    I decided not to go after the step challenge. My time on the bike is more important to me than the money. I didn't feel like I was being penalized, although I did feel like the situation was slightly unfair and arbitrary. But I think it's also great that my company cares about us as people and not just for what we can produce.

    My employer participated in On The Move, which allows people to log steps or other types of activity, this year. For next year they have expanded the wellness reward program and I think that anybody who complains about the options is likely a person who would complain no matter what. We can get points toward the rewards by doing all sorts of things from getting a dental or vision exam to participating in stress management seminars to participating in a walk/run/ride for a cause to doing a fruit and vegetable challenge. There are 23 categories of activities and then more than one option under at least half of them.
  • Sugarbeat
    Sugarbeat Posts: 824 Member
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    We don't have the Fitbit thing but where I work its really convoluted. You take a '"test" to determine your health that includes a doctor's visit, blood work, BMI, a flu shot, a tobacco form, and health profile on our insurance's website. If you fail, and most do for one reason or another, you get a higher premium/deductible on your health insurance UNLESS you take a health class/program (includes anything from boot camp to increasing water intake-most I know do this one) and then you get the lower premium/deductible. If you happen to the belong to the approximately 5% that actually pass all markers, you move directly to the lower premium/deductible. I get that they're trying to encourage better health and therefore lower insurance costs, but I have to wonder how much they're spending to try and make it happen.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited October 2016
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    I think activity trackers related to work are okay or even a really good idea for employee-generated competitive events and teams. Like employees creating teams that compete with other teams of employees on steps etc etc and aren't tied in any way shape or form to their incomes, insurance or employment.

    I think its pretty ridiculous to rely on an activity tracker for something like an insurance benefit or penality let alone some sort of requirement for employment.
  • born_of_fire74
    born_of_fire74 Posts: 776 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    I'm a cyclist. I like to ride 10 to 15 miles after work, it helps me unwind, gets me outdoors, and I enjoy it. My watch doesn't count steps when I'm on the bike.

    I have a friend who games Pokémon Go by putting his phone on a turntable to fool the thing into thinking he is walking around. Maybe not quite the same but, as the piano playing music teacher mentioned earlier in the thread shows, these trackers can be tricked. What's to stop you from strapping the thing to your ankle instead of your wrist when you're biking? Does it have to go on your wrist for a pulse interaction or some such that would not work on your ankle?

    Just curious.
  • lilac_bunny
    lilac_bunny Posts: 137 Member
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    It sounds like the nanny state in America is even worse than the UK :-0 they are just letting busnisses do it rather than the government directly.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
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    lilac_bunny wrote: »
    It sounds like the nanny state in America is even worse than the UK :-0 they are just letting busnisses do it rather than the government directly.

    This started in the 1920s as an employee benefit, but due to lack of tort reform and the absurd legislation around insurance this has become a monster that quite simply needs to be killed.

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