Motivating employees is a key part of any successful corporate wellness program and an overall important component of wellness in the workplace.
Unfortunately, some programs can actually divide your team if you’re not careful. If you’re only thinking about fitness beginners, you could demotivate people who are already very active or focused on health.
To use your program to its full potential, try these three strategies:
Diversify What You Track
Step tracking tends to be a cornerstone of corporate wellness programs, but a step challenge can be mundane for someone who already has a very active routine.
Take Rebecca, a 35-year-old marathoner. She regularly logs 5-10 mile training runs before work, but her company’s wellness plan caps her trackable steps at 10,000 per day. Eventually, she stopped participating.
A more diverse program could have keep her engaged by including activities such as:
- Sleep: Encourage healthy habits around sleep to help you feel more rested, focused, and balanced. Track this manually or with a fitness tracker.
- Hydration: Nearly half of Americans aren’t drinking enough water. Change that by incentivizing your office to pick up a water bottle instead of a latte.
- Meditation: Regular meditation can reduce stress and improve self-awareness, but it can be tough to stick to the practice. Help make it a habit.
- Fitness Facility Visits: Do your employees already have a favorite way to exercise? Whether thats yoga, Crossfit, or the new spinning studio near the office, include them by building a plan that includes the activities they are already doing.
Do It For a Cause
While charity walks are pretty similar to step challenges, they come with added perks. Charity walks raise awareness for various causes, typically diseases that haven’t been cured, and also allow donations. These walks are also a great team bonding activity and already fit employees will enjoy the social aspect. Encouraging employees to participate in charity walks is a great way to keep everyone moving with a higher purpose!
Typically charity runs have multiple options for participants. Some employees can run, some can walk. These are great for people of all fitness levels!
Create Real Competition
As you may know, Incentfit doesn’t believe that one size fits all, which is why we created SmartEngage. SmartEngage is a feature that we offer that automatically creates challenges based off of employee fitness level. By running various challenges at once for different groups, you are creating the right amount of competition to keep things engaging.
A diverse and flexible program is the best way to make sure everyone is participating. Need more ideas on how to expand your wellness program? Check out our other posts on the Wellness Word.