9 Considerations For Establishing an Active Wellness Plan

April is the month of fools!! But there’s no fooling around when it comes to worksite wellness, that’s for sure.

This month, I want to focus on physical activity. There’s no doubt, physical activity and staying active has positive benefits for the body, mind, and soul. Maintaining an active lifestyle can help you lose weight, reduce health risks, improve your mood, strengthen your bones and muscles, and that’s not all. If there were ever a “magic bullet” out there, in my opinion, physical activity is it.

When you have leadership commitment and an engaged workforce, the worksite wellness possibilities are endless. To start your worksite wellness initiatives, survey your employees for areas of interest. This should give you good insight into what your employees are looking for from a worksite wellness program. Once the survey is complete, your organization might consider offering the following:

• Contact your local park & recreation department for sport league information.
• Offer an onsite fitness class, provide gym reimbursement to employees who already have active memberships or design an in-house fitness center.
• Offer physical activity programs/competitions like the 10,000 Steps Campaign, Walk Across America, President’s Fitness Challenge, etc.
• Create a “Hall of Fame” that spotlights employee fitness success stories and/or a resource center that provides information on ways to stay active.
• Contact a local fitness vendor and negotiate discounted pricing for home equipment or for a corporate discounted membership rate.
• Incorporate fitness into company team building events and offer up volleyball, Frisbee golf, softball, horseshoes, scavenger hunts, basketball shoot outs, relay races, etc.
• Host walking meetings or, if you have stairs in your organization, develop a “stairwell to health” campaign to encourage stairwell use.  Jazz it up and make it inviting.
• Partner with local community groups and get involved in fundraising walks/5k races, biking events, Warrior Dashes, etc.
• Invite a local footwear vendor into the workplace to educate employees on the importance of proper footwear during exercise.

The list goes on and on! Again, leadership support and an active wellness committee are key to helping provide access, to evaluating, developing, and to implementing what will work best within a company’s culture.