Workplace Wellness: Creating Health Awareness Through an In-Office Contest
Posted by Amelia K. on Tuesday, October 21st, 2014 with 11 Comments
As you’re likely already aware, a workplace wellness program can inspire change within your organization by encouraging your staff to lead healthier, more productive lives. Encouraging a healthier lifestyle by offering workout opportunities during the day, providing healthy meals through services like Waiter.com and sharing information about both the benefits of being healthy and how to integrate better choices into your life are great starting points. And since research shows that a healthier workforce can drive down your company’s health care costs, there are some serious financial benefits to developing a wellness plan for your business.
But with all of that being said, a workplace wellness program can only be effective if you’re getting employees to participate, and if they are inspired to incorporate the tools and opportunities you provide into their life outside of the office. While wellness programs can certainly be scaleable, your intention is likely to encourage as many people from your team to participate as possible. If you’re searching for a great way to increase participation in your program and instill a healthier lifestyle in your team, a company-wide contest may be the perfect way to kick off your next workplace wellness series. If you’re not sure what that looks like or how to best implement it, we’ll lay out all of the basics to get you started.
Offering healthy lunch-and-learns can be a great part of a workplace wellness contest.
Image source: Flickr user wetwebwork
Team Based
It’s easy for individuals who feel self-conscious or unsure about their exercise abilities to shy away from a workplace wellness program. They don’t want to feel like the odd man or woman out, or they may not be completely comfortable taking on such a big new challenge by themselves. This is where a team based mentality can encourage participation in your program. Studies have shown a strong correlation between the interaction, support and motivation individuals receive by participating in exercise programs with the support of a team and their likeliness to stick with their new habits over the long haul, which is what you’re looking to help your employees do.
Start setting up your contest by dividing your staff into teams. The best way to do this is to mix people from different levels within the company together—not only will this help to create solidarity between departments, but strengthen the number of relationships your staff has to your business, which can help increase their loyalty to your company. As you’re dividing up your teams, try to think of a unique theme that can help people unify–like choosing a particular color (and providing shirts in that color for each team) or letting each team make up a fun name. The more you get your employees engaged in the contest, the more effective it will be.
Use a Scoring System
Using a contest to increase participation in your workplace wellness program means you need to develop a list of points that each team can achieve for doing wellness activities. For example, each person that attends the Tuesday yoga class over lunch could earn three points for their team, while if a whole team attends they could get an extra ten points. Or you could use our virtual cafeteria service to offer healthy lunches on specific days of the week, and those who choose one of the healthy options on the menu get five points. Or, perhaps you offer a weekly lunch and learn that talks about integrating exercise into a busy lifestyle, where individuals can earn two points, and an additional seven points for getting their whole team to attend.
The easiest way to set this up is to create a short spreadsheet that lays out what the opportunities for earning points are, how many points an individual earns for their team by participating in specific activities and whether or not there’s a bonus incentive for everyone on the team taking part. Allowing each team to track their progress and turn in their points at the end of each week will help you manage the contest as a whole. The more you can encourage your staff to participate in opportunities together, the more people you’ll see taking part in your wellness program, and integrating those healthy lifestyle tactics into their life outside of work.
Offer an Incentive
As the contest progresses, you’ll want to promote some incentives heavily to keep everyone interested in the game. Maybe the winning team gets a free catered lunch and a six-month gym membership. Perhaps everyone who participates has the opportunity to win gift cards for a massage, a round of golf or free coffee for a year. While it might sound silly, driving your contest through great incentives will help to increase participation from the start and keep the teams motivated during the contest. Plus, the more each team works together to achieve their goals, the more fun they’ll have, which can be a huge boost on employee morale, in addition to promoting healthier lifestyle choices.
Finding the Right Fit
When you’re searching for the right way to integrate healthier standards into your company, the options can seem a little overwhelming. From building a corporate gym to offering interactive health seminars to choosing healthy snacks for your break room, there are a lot of options available to you. The key is to explore all of the opportunities and take advantage of the ones that make implementing a workplace wellness program easier for you.
And when it comes to helping with healthy food choices, Waiter.com is here to make life easier for you. Our service doesn’t just offer the ability to easily order food delivery from local restaurants, we actually have customizable options for your business, like our corporate catering and our virtual cafeteria service. When you’re ready to let us take some of the heavy lifting off your shoulders, give us a call–we’ll set you up with a program your employees are sure to love!
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This is interesting, and is a great idea for managers to implement to boost morale.
This is such a great idea to bring healthy food into the workplace while team building! I think offering healthier options will also help everyone to focus better than if they’d eaten a big plate of donuts.
Haha, this is very true!
Sounds like a great way to engage employees in improving their health. I wonder if a companywide team might be another good way to handle the contest, so that there’s a chance for everyone to cooperate win the prize.
That’s a great idea! It would likely be dependent on the size of your company – as too many people on one team might be overwhelming.
The article is right on. Healthier meals will mean happier employees, and more productive employees. too. In addition employees that have a healthy company lunch together weekly will have better morale and feel better about their employer, too.
Very true! And a great reason to consider a virtual cafe service!
Having a workplace wellness program really is a great way to get employees to focus on their own health. My job offers incentives to us for different milestones, one example being quitting smoking.
More and more companies seem to be doing this – it’s a great way to encourage employees to bring healthier habits into their lives!
We had a chili competition but there were no official winners. Keeping a score sheet seems like a great idea.
Oooh, we love chili competitions! Great idea!