Plan your again keep it simple

People get sick, or busy, or just run out of steam. HR managers planning wellness competitions should keep expectation in check.Įxpect initial enthusiasm followed by some leveling off around week four. Put motivated people to work in more productive ways as wellness champions or team leaders. If participation is a concern, why make it harder to join the fun?Īgain, keep it simple for your participants and yourself. What this actually does is make signing up harder, since a large portion of participants now have to go recruit others. I do not recommend making employees form their own teams, though some might argue this would increase engagement given the “viral effect” of employees recruiting others. My first recommendation is to structure teams around location, department, floor, or some other work unit that requires little effort for you to organize and simplifies participation for your workforce. They add camaraderie and accountability without making a competition too cutthroat. Recognize not just the top-performers, but those who have strived hard and done well.įinally, keep incentives fitness-focused, which discourages cheating and supports the goals of the program. If outcomes are your focus, keep it fair. Try weekly random prize drawings for participants.

It’s so simple and makes everyone feel good.įor interim incentives, I like very small awards that encourage participation. I like it when my clients structure overall team competitions around donating to the charity of the winning team’s choice. There are limitless ways to structure incentives, but pick one or two for any individual challenge. Speaking of incentives, they should be easy to understand, not burdened by cumbersome rules or calculations. Generous prizes are great motivators, but they can actually encourage cheating. Prizes should be attractive, but not too attractive. If you fear cheating, examine your incentive structure. Don’t make people jump through extra hoops to verify their results or report at particular place and time.įrom the participant’s standpoint, if reporting is hard, they are less likely to do it. Make it easy for people to report their metrics - whether its weight, steps or something else. If engagement is hard, don’t make participating even harder keep the barrier to entry low. During your walking challenge, tap into grassroots efforts around charity walks in which your employees are likely already engaged. During your activity challenge, offer tips on “10-minute desk workouts” or activities in your fitness center. For instance, during your weight loss challenge, focus attention on your Weight Watchers work offering. Not only does this make your job easier, it also allows you to strategically focus your communications and supporting programs. Instead of a combination activity/walking/weight-loss challenge, do separate individual challenges throughout the year. Rather than trying to boil the ocean, focus on getting people to make a single change. Ask them to do one thing, and they’ll do that and one other.”Ĭhallenges are most effective when they allow people to focus and compete on just one metric. There’s an old adage: “Ask someone to do five things, and they’ll do nothing. Unfortunately, “keep it simple” is easier said than done, so here are a few helpful tips to reduce complexity and maximize participation. I wouldn’t even do that, and I run a wellness company! The goal instead is just to get people to pay attention to their health, not turn everyone into Jack LaLanne. If you try to attack too many issues at once, it will bring failure to a campaign quickly.Īsking employees to track weight, steps, calories, activity minutes, and the amount of sleep they get is ludicrous. In my experience, the single most important element for engagement in such challenges is simplicity. However, running an effective fitness challenge can be, in a word, challenging. Participants engaged in fitness competitions have also shown a propensity to sign up for other wellness program offerings in an effort to increase their performance in the competition as well as to achieve their overall health and fitness goals. The excitement generated via competition and the drive to best others can be very persuasive, in generating sign-ups and sustaining involvement over the course of a program. We work with companies to help create fitness challenges, something that has quite often proven itself to be an effective tactic in increasing engagement. In our experience, HR managers’ first reaction is to offer more wellness options, but this is not answer. Once in decline, trying to lure an employee back into the fold can be tricky.

HR managers are often confounded when their wellness programs experience less-than-expected employee engagement, but they should take heart - engagement can be a fickle metric.Įmployees sign up and start with enthusiasm, only to steadily decline.