Elliott’s challenging wellness challenge.
Below is a fictional scenario based on real-life events.
“This looks great, thank you!” Elliott was chatting with fellow wellness committee members at ACME Corporation and reviewing the upcoming “Wellness Wednesdays” flyer designed by the team.
Elliott has been at ACME for a few years and is rising at the company. They were looking for an opportunity to connect with leaders across the organization while embracing their love for healthy eating and exercise habits.
Leading the company’s wellness committee was the perfect match. Elliott’s boss was fully supportive, and Elliott had a great time connecting with fellow enthusiasts.
One problem: this program’s participants are primarily individual contributors and middle managers. Executives rarely participate, citing meetings, travel, and other commitments.
What can Elliott do to increase the participation of executives at ACME?
The premise behind corporate wellness challenges offers good intentions. Challenges promote mental and physical well-being that can solicit community across a team or organization.
From a strategic standpoint, challenges help employees feel healthier, make them more productive, and ultimately help businesses achieve their business objectives. Tactics include inviting yoga instructors to host sessions, downloading mobile fitness applications, ticking off boxes on bingo cards, and taking cues from giant, colorful wall posters.
Beyond health benefits, participation incentives include everything from money and gift cards to time off and praise.
The problems with short-term wellness challenges are:
While intentions are good, they are typically incomplete and don’t address long-term impact.
Participation with senior members of the organization is inconsistent, as I’ve experienced in my career.
If I were Elliott and creating a wellness challenge or working to communicate one to your employees, here is what to consider to extend its value.
Remind senior leaders to lean in.
Junior- and mid-level employees look at every move senior leaders make in companies.
That includes how much they participate in what some might consider non-essential activities like wellness challenges.
As an executive, I took it upon myself to participate in wellness activities. I wanted to show junior staff that executives prioritize their mental and physical well-being. From doing planks to walking up flights of stairs, I made the time to show up.
Discuss with your manager (or other senior advocates) a strategy to get executives’ attention through:
Celebrating employee successes in past challenges.
Sharing the health benefits of participating.
Working with executive assistants to block time on calendars to participate.
Start with a pilot, measure impact, and iterate.
Recently, I had the opportunity to lead a company-wide six-week wellness pilot program, which included workshops and weekly videos.
The company even created a specific Chasing the Sun Slack channel.
As a result, the company reported less employee turnover and increased business revenue.
A key success factor is the entire leadership team participated.
The CEO committed to the entire staff that they were making other impactful changes to culture and well-being, including impactful changes to meeting frequency and work on Fridays.
To test proof of concept, offer to run a pilot program with your entire staff or a specific workstream that involves increasing awareness of (and subsequently, activating) your corporate wellness benefits.
And now for your MollyMoh update! Our sweet girl is having a ball with her fresh fall haircut!
