As warmer weather approaches, we naturally have more interest in our health, getting outside, and rebuilding our muscles.
Moving our bodies for 30 minutes every day has an incredible impact on our health. It improves our mood, our concentration, and helps us sleep better. It even helps stave off cardiovascular disease, lowers our risk of cancer, our blood pressure, and improves our cholesterol levels.
As employers, we care about the health of our employees. You can try to help them engage in wellness activities by offering excellent benefits like biking to work (micromobility), gym memberships, and fitness class stipends.
But it can be hard for some individuals to get started. Which is why an Office Fitness Challengemay help get you get up and going. Doing things as a group, relying on each other, and challenging each other (someone has to win!) is an excellent way to walk into Spring.
Here are some Fitness Challenges that will help your office get moving and begin utilizing some of your company’s great commuter and lifestyle benefits:
Use your local BikeShare program to get to work for one month
An increasing number of cities nationwide offer some type of bikeshare program (the largest being New York City’s CitiBike program). Challenge your employees to bike to work for a whole month.
Opt into the company’s Gym Membership Program for one month
There are several ways to structure this challenge…
- Any individual who opts into your gym membership program, and visits the gym for an individual workout or class activity wins a valuable prize.
- Divide the office into teams (perhaps department vs. department) and see who can rack up the most steps by month’s end. Or, if pedometers cannot be passed out, you can challenge them to win by spending the most time on the treadmill, walking outside solo, or walking outside as a group.
- See which individual, or office-team, can wrack up the most steps on the infamous “Stair Climbing” machine.
- If your office is especially competitive, you could have teams compete by completing a week-long bootcamp challenge. This would be an excellent opportunity to bring in a fitness expert to provide tips and advice, or a dietician to talk about healthy eating habits. Set a goal for teams to complete a certain number of challenges over the course of the week.
Great prize ideas that encourage continued healthy habits
When it comes to prizes, “the pride of being the winner” rarely cuts it. If you truly want your employees to engage with these challenges, give them a real monetary incentive to participate.
This could take the form of free lunch for a month. This gives you the chance to provide clean, healthy eating to your winners, and has the bonus of reducing their food bill for the month.
You could offer an at-home grocery, or increased at-home grocery, stipend for a month. A gift certificate will shave off a good part of a monthly grocery bill, allowing your employees greater food security as well as the chance to save money.
Increased Commuter Benefits for a month. Your employees are only able to set aside $300 a month of pre-tax dollars each month. If you live in an area where $300 isn’t quite enough, shave your winner’s bill down by increasing their benefits for a month or longer.
Remember, the goal is to help your employees opt into your existing programs, or if you’re just kicking off your commuter, health, and lifestyle benefits programs, then these challenges are a great way to introduce your new offerings to your team. You will also want to consider the different health levels in your office before choosing your challenge.
Get your benefits package rolled out with the help of Edenred
If you’re not sure how to implement programs like the above, we can show you the way.
Sometimes the thing that holds us, as employers, back from offering benefits is “Administratively, and operationally, how do I make this happen?” That’s where we come in.
We offer everything you need to get things rolling. And we do it all in a way that maintains affordability for you! Schedule a meeting with us today so you can learn more.
