Employee wellness programs continue to be one of the most sought after workplace benefits and perks. Be it to retain your skilled employees, to hire new talent, or for overall workplace wellness, wellness programs play a major role in accomplishing these business goals.
Healthy workplaces are productive workplaces, and so, employers are now ready to invest well in corporate wellness programs. The focus is to improve employee health and wellness, boost workplace wellbeing, and overall organizational productivity.
While employee engagement is a prerequisite for a successful wellness program and overall business growth, implementing the right strategies could be a daunting task.
Of the many workplace benefits and perks, offering suitable wellness challenges has been proven to be one of the effective employee engagement strategies.
With the fall season around, Wellness360 has compiled and put together a few workplace wellness challenge ideas that you can incorporate in your corporate wellness programs for your employee holistic wellness.
Wellness Challenge Ideas for the Fall
1. Step Challenge – Have your employees start with the 10,000 step challenge. If it seems too much to start with, start with a 5K step challenge. This challenge emphasizes on the importance of physical activity for holistic wellness. The steps can be counted for any physical activity, including walking, running, skiing, biking, yoga, gardening, etc. It is easier to log the steps with a wearable or tracking app, which can be synced with our Wellness360 platform or MyHealthPlus mobile app.
2. Fall Into the Fitness Challenge – Fall is the season to make wellness goals and the right time to work on them. With the winter setting in soon, it is time to take measures for better immunity, health and wellness to avoid any health issues then. Also, it is the right time to reboot before the winter holidays start. Make sure your employees have at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day to stay fit and healthy.
3. Get Your Flu Shot – Studies show that almost 20,000 Americans are hospitalized every year due to health complications arising from the flu. Organize a corporate health program with the annual flu shots for your employees. By getting your workforce vaccinated on time, you can do a lot to have your employees protected. If it is not possible to organize one at the workplace due to the COVID-19 outbreak, make sure you arrange the shots for your employees as per their convenience.
4. Healthy Cooking with Seasonal Produce – Seasonal produce implies fresh products that are rich in nutrients and are good for the body to gain immunity. Start a healthy eating challenge where your employees must consume seasonal produce during fall. Have them share recipes, cooking tips, and other ideas to inspire the entire workforce. Have them log their food daily through the wellness challenge period. Swap the fried snacks at the workplace with food products of fall seasonal produce like apples, beets, cranberries, eggplants, herbs like thyme and sage, pears, potatoes, and more.
5. Plan a Group Outing – Fall is the season to go out and have some fun. Organize fun challenges by holding outdoor meetings, treasure hunt games, outdoor barbecue pot luck lunches, or outdoor sports activities like basketball, baseball, etc. Hold pulse surveys or polls to seek feedback from your employees to know their wellness challenge ideas and plan them accordingly.
6. Bike and Hike – In addition to outdoor activities, organizing bike and hike events could also be effective wellness challenge ideas during the fall. Plan a hiking weekend for teams or the entire workforce, and have them biking through the trails. Autumn hiking is the best way to get in touch with nature, grab some fresh air, and get fit with the physical activity.
7. Remote Working For One Day A Week – Give your efficient employees the extra perk of working remotely one day a week. If they are already working remotely due to the COVID-19, allow flexible working hours as an option. Offering such employee wellness benefits and perks instills a feeling of being taken care of by the employer. This boosts employee engagement and productivity at work. Also, the extra commute times can be used to spend more time with their family or for their hobbies.
8. Read A Book Challenge – Reading books can be very helpful for stress relief and mental wellness. Start a ‘Read a book’ challenge where employees must finish reading any book of their choice in 10 – 15 days. Employers can help in subsidizing the books or offer ebooks to help the employees with these workplace wellness challenge ideas.
9. Online Courses and Resources – With many employees working remotely due to the COVID-19, many are not able to visit their gyms or have their daily physical activity routines. Employers can offer online courses and resources to help employees get back to their healthy routine despite working remotely. Wellness360 offers online courses from SelfHelpWorks, which contain educational resources and online videos to help employees with their wellness journey. Employers can set up challenges where employees can select the online course of their choice and complete it within the stipulated time.
10. Choose Your Adventure – Every employee is different, and so will be their health and wellness needs and capabilities. Allow your employees to choose their own wellness adventure – yoga, cycling, swimming, dancing, strength-training, or whichever fitness activity they are comfortable with. They can log their activity details into the wellness platform, and complete the wellness challenge.
There are many more workplace wellness challenge ideas that you can implement through your corporate wellness programs. However, you need to make sure that these wellness challenges are fun for your employees to participate readily. This ensures maximum employee engagement, a successful wellness program, and better employee health and wellness.
The corporate wellness programs from Wellness360 are so user-friendly that employees can choose the best wellness challenge of their choice from the wellness platform and get started with it. They can track their activity progress by syncing the wellness account with their wearable or tracking app.
Offer rewards and incentives to your employees after they successfully complete the workplace wellness challenges. This will encourage them to take their challenges seriously and give their best efforts to complete it.