Once thought of as just a perk, you get to enjoy if you landed a job with a very fancy company. Now wellness programs, such as the increasingly popular step challenge, are more and more becoming part of the standard for a healthy company policy. Surveys have pointed out that employees are up to 40% more likely to remain loyal to their company when they are provided with benefits that have a positive impact on their work and home life.
Implementing Wellness Programs
Before you decide to implement this initiative, first determine whether or not this need to improve your company is coming from a genuine desire to help enhance the lives of those who work for you. Regardless of the outcome, you must be able to say you did this from a place of good intent. And just to dispel any other notions regarding the purpose of these challenges.
Firstly, if you’re under the impression that you need to be running a big company or at least have some deep pockets to finance a wellness program, you may want to change your mind. Small businesses can run a very effective challenge on a tight budget, and with thoughtful consideration, rewards can be tailored to be exactly what a member of staff might need to make their situation at home a bit better. While individually marketed initiatives have the results to prove their effectiveness, they are still focused on one dimension or, at best, only a few of the aspects comprising an individual’s state of wellbeing within a company. To effectively implement all the dimensions of wellbeing to their full potential is not a simple task, and finding a program that incorporates the correct initiatives for your business is essential, not only to maximize beneficial progress but also to ensure effective, long-lasting results for both employee and employer. As employers should care for the health of employees, wellness programs are a great way to benefit the business.
One highly effective initiative employed successfully by thousands of companies around the world is the step challenge. It is an easy to use program that utilizes wristband devices to measure steps taken by an employee throughout the working day. Participants compete against themselves, trying to achieve personal or pre-programmed goals, or join up into teams to challenge other teams or departments, or compete in the individual competition.
Incentives And Rewards
Incentives and rewards are always great motivators, and while some employers opt for rewards based on participation, others prefer to award achievements according to the scores on the leaderboards. The most effective step challenge programs use a leaderboard updated in real-time for participants to stay up to date with their progress and ranking. Step challenges are very popular and have even been implemented on a global scale with countries competing against each other for the longest virtual marathon.
Regardless of how you choose to implement such a challenge, it will ultimately have good results. It can assist in forming a bond between team members, it can boost productivity, and you won’t have to wait long to see the results. The wellbeing of your workforce is very much in your hands.
