Wellness programs come in a variety of styles. There are programs that provide employees with the option to receive a service or benefit, such as biometric screenings, health risk assessments, fitness tests, or contributions toward gym memberships and do not subject the employee to any benefit or consequence based on the results. These programs may reward employees purely for participation or not include a reward. There are also wellness programs that reward employees based on improvements to their health such as quitting smoking, obtaining a certain body mass index (BMI), or achieving a certain blood pressure result.

Wellness programs can be voluntary or mandatory, although mandatory programs requiring medical exams can be problematic under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), unless they can be shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity. Additionally, even with voluntary programs, employers should be conservative with their rewards because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has not yet taken a position on whether financial incentives can render a voluntary program involuntary, thereby implicating the ADA.