Ever wonder what the secret ingredients are for a successful wellness challenge? There is no silver bullet as a challenge in one company may bomb but kick butt in another. Read this recipe for success.
Every company is unique as is their culture so the ingredients are going to differ. However, there might be some common elements that may make it more likely to produce a ‘zesty entrée.’
Why do some seem to flourish and others flop? Is there a magic recipe that works for everyone? Well, the short answer is “probably not”.
But here are 6 ingredients for a great wellness recipe. You may also want to learn about the trials and tribulations of employee health and wellness challenges.
Wellness Challenge Recipe
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Make it fun - Theme up the challenge online, the promotional materials and create fun onsite events that align with the theme. For example, why not a pirate or a zombie challenge? The skies the limit (or is it?) so be creative to bring out the fun factor!
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Passion - A company's wellness team needs passion. If the wellness champions model employee health and wellbeing they will help to inspire others, there is likely to be more participation. If the wellness team isn't passionate then they are less likely to muster up the energy in others… it’s as simple as that. If you need someone that’s passionate about wellness to run your challenges, CoreHealth Wellness Network partners could help.
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Leadership support - The 3 P’s of leadership support are: promote it, participate in it and create policy for it. Leaders can’t just sit by and watch it all happen. If they are truly a leader in their company, they will participate in the wellness program, actively promote it so that employees know it’s happening and create healthy company policy to make wellness the central component of the company culture. E.g. flex time to support wellness activities
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Incentives - intrinsic and extrinsic….people are motivated for different reasons so offering wellness incentives for both types is part of a yummy recipe. A water bottle or a gift card may work for some but others might just want recognition for their efforts in the company newsletter. The CoreHealth Corporate Wellness Platform makes it easy to motivate your employees with customizable challenge milestones, a configurable wellness score for your annualized incentive program and real-time reports to download for program administrators.
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Align with program objectives - Every successful challenge targets major health risks in a company e.g. inactivity. It’s better to launch a challenge that will engage more people than one that will only engage a select few. It’s not to say that wellness programs shouldn't target smaller pockets of the population (e.g. Smokers) but EVERY challenge shouldn't focus on those individuals. For example, an awesome physical activity challenge will engage a large population.
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Participatory Action - This is undoubtedly one of the key ingredients to a successful challenge. Be sure to involve the individuals (for which the program is intended) in the planning phase of your program. This approach has been around in health promotion for decades so it’s tried and true.
Watch How CoreHealth Does Challenges
If new, engaging wellbeing challenges are part of your workplace wellness strategy, watch our video to see how CoreHealth puts you in full control to design your own or get started fast with existing templates.
Need New Challenge Ideas?
Do you think you have some (but not all) of these “key ingredients” for successful wellness challenges? Perhaps you need some fresh new ideas. Contact us today for some fun, fresh and innovative ideas that will have your employees coming back for 2nd’s! (And 3rds, 4ths, etc…). Check out our out-of-the-box wellness challenges that are ready to go or contact us.
About CoreHealth
CoreHealth Technologies Inc. is the leading corporate wellness platform trusted by more than 1000 organizations, ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises. At CoreHealth, we believe that developing the best employee wellness programs is all about giving wellness companies the right code, design and access to the latest innovations. With the most customization, integrations and reliability of any software in its class, CoreHealth’s powerful platform lets users focus on growing great companies. For more information, visit corehealth.global.
