When Scott, our company’s president, approached me with the idea of kicking off a wellness challenge using modern fitness trackers, I literally jumped at the opportunity… not only because I knew it would be a hit, but because he had scared me half to death by sneaking up on me while I was running in our company’s fitness center. This was an unintentional fright of course, but the momentum that this conversation sparked was not.
We created a racetrack as a way to display the progress of the top steppers compared to Scott. The gold, silver, and bronze sneakers represent the top steppers, while the bright yellow sneaker represents Scott’s iconic choice of athletic gear.
The Lawson Group’s wellness team came together to brainstorm ways to use fitness trackers to the advantage of company wellness. After quite a bit of collaboration, research, and some stamps of approval, our wellness challenge, Can You Keep Up With Scott, was born. Forty-three of our fifty employees signed up and competed for the most steps over the following 8-week period.
The friendly competition added a fun and new dynamic to our work environment. With the Fitbit devices tracking steps without attention needed, competition was constant. For some people, it didn’t seem so bad that the nearest printer was out of order or that the water fountain was furthest from their desk. People wanted steps! I created a challenge board in the office to display top competitors’ and employees’ average stats on a weekly basis. Employees would stop and share some banter in good spirit while passing by.
This lovely gift basket was a raffle prize for one of the bi-weekly mini challenges which included activities such as participating in the group discussion board with tips on how to increase steps.
It was rewarding to see employees not only get excited and competitive over their step counts, but also improve some of their biometric measurements over the course of the challenge. I cannot speak for the company as a whole, but I will say that the positive feedback on the challenge came in abundance. We plan to continue the use of these devices in future challenges. Incorporating fitness trackers with modern capabilities into our wellness program truly brought out a cultural focus on wellness from within our company to shine.
