Like them or hate them – you just cannot ignore the popularity of fitness challenges. There can be many possible reasons for their popularity amongst millennials and Zoomers. The most plausible one, is that it brings accountability and community into fitness, two parameters that can help a person stay committed to a fitness program.
With some creativity and with a flexible corporate fitness partner by their side, employers can use this new trend to increase participation in workplace wellness initiatives. It does come across as a tad gimmicky, we agree.
But as long as it’s a part of a well-thought out strategy, it will help deliver measured outcomes.
A study reveals that it might take anywhere from 18-254 days for a behavior to become a habit. Short term corporate fitness challenges might be very helpful.
If you are drastically short of ideas to incorporate a fitness challenge into your workplace wellness program, then here are five creative ways to do that.
#1 – 5 breaks a day Challenge
It is estimated that lost productivity costs Australian employers $34 billion a year. Taking mindfulness breaks is a great entryway into wellbeing. It offers an array of health benefits, the most notable one, a direct reduction in stress and depression and an improvement in productivity.
One of the problems that employers often face, is that mindfulness comes across as overwhelming to employees who are new to fitness.
As simple as it seems, the idea of breaking away from a recurrent, toxic chain of thought to reflect on one’s current self, requires practice. That’s where the fitness challenge comes into play. It’s a great way to encourage the workforce to take breaks. 5 mindfulness breaks a day will not only allow them the much-needed refresher, it also helps them practice it more often.
A corporate fitness partner like Happy Melon should be able to help create a custom mindfulness program, that’s not overwhelming for employees.
#2 – Walking challenge
Walking is a fundamental physical exercise that has a plethora of benefits to offer. It’s unfortunate that the hustle-culture demands our constant attention at the work desk, which deprives us of this easy way to stay fit.
A walking challenge is a great way to encourage employees to walk more, at the office. There are so many ways to be creative with this. Employers can set rules for a minimum number of steps to be completed each day. Employees who complete the corporate fitness challenge for a week automatically qualify for a raffle.
#3 – Use the stairs challenge
Encourage employees to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Just like steps, the number of stairs can be set. The more, the merrier.
#4 – Team Yoga Challenge
A team that does Yoga together, stays together. Encouraging team activities such as yoga or pilates helps improve a sense of team bonding and motivates employees to work together towards a common goal. The winning team, as well as the participants can have incentives, although incentivisation in corporate fitness is generally frowned upon.
#5 – Share your happiness challenge
Last but not the least, if any corporate wellness initiative has led to an improvement in an employee’s overall wellbeing, encourage them to share a few words about it. There’s nothing more motivating than seeing real results. If participation in corporate fitness programs are dismal, this should help improve it for sure.
