A wellness program should center on initiatives that are customized for your business and your employees’ needs. We’ve got a fun and easy step challenge initiative that’s great for New Year’s Resolution season.
A step challenge is a good way to break the ice when starting off your wellness program as it is simple to understand and easy for employees to work into their daily life. Encouraging employees to get up and walk more is also a good way to address and help combat the physical effects of sedentary jobs.
The aim is for individual employees or teams to increase the distance they walk each week for the duration of the challenge. First things first, who’s going to be in charge of your challenge? Designate a Step Challenge Coordinator who can confidentially handle wellness check-ins and the administrative duties. You can also choose to have employees self-report their results.
Rewards are important to gaining buy-in and engagement from your employees. You can give prizes weekly or at the very end. You’ll also want to consider if you want your incentive to be based on participation, results, or both. It’s okay if you don’t have a big budget, just get creative! Maybe your grand prize is a simple trophy you can pass around to winner of the step challenge each year, you can upgrade the trophy by engraving the winner’s name. Ask the boss if he’ll consent to a funny prize, like “Boss Cleans Your Car” or “Use the Boss’s Office/Car for a Day”. These quirky incentives can go a long way towards building rapport and culture, not just saving money.
Regular and attention-grabbing communication is vital for the success of any part of a voluntary wellness program. The more conversation you create, the more likely your team is to participate. Don’t just keep it the basics like deadlines and rules, share healthy tips and words of encouragement. Changing your lifestyle is hard, acknowledging your participants time and energy can go a long way towards your program’s success and showing your company cares about employee well-being. Want to take your wellness communication to social media? We’ve got even more ideas and post templates here!
Finished your step challenge? Now it’s time to celebrate! Announce your winners at a company meeting or lunch if possible. Everyone can share their success stories and swap tips to keep the great results going. Award your prizes but don’t stop there! Where else can you share the celebration? Don’t forget to share pictures and winners on social media, company intranet, email, or even have a photo album or framed picture for your lobby made to commemorate.
Don’t forget that cash and cash equivalent incentives (gift cards, gift certificate, bonuses, etc.) are taxable incentives. For the most part, your liability with this type of incentive is limited to the tax implications of giving discretionary employee compensation. Independent employee fringe benefits (free health risk assessments, merchandise, trophies, raffle items, etc.) are subject to rules issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). To make sure these fringe benefits remain independent, be sure to not offer them in connection with your group health plan benefits.
Are your employees excited about participating in the next Step Challenge? You might need to prove ROI (return on investment) to get buy-in from the owner of executives. Be sure to communicate the overall benefits and statistics for wellness programs. To measure the ROI of your Step Challenge, consider what statistics you can gather other than steps counted. Health care expenses, number of sick days, and productivity of participants versus non-participants are good places to start. Use employee surveys to report their feedback on health, productivity and morale during the challenge. With this data, you may be able to show the correlation between increased employee activity with health care savings and productivity at your own organization!
Ready to get started? Download your Step Challenge Timeline & Checklist below and get walking! Want Austin to implement the full Step on It! Challenge and other wellness initiatives for your business? Call us at 248.594.5550 or send us a message to find out more about our healthySOLUTIONS programs.
