With 2021 nearly behind us, we are gearing up for an exciting 2022. If you’re still finalizing your early 2022 workplace wellness plans and are looking for some ideas and inspiration, we thought we’d share some examples of the types of programs we are putting together for our clients in the new year.
Let’s start with an example of how we’re working with Odlum Brown, an investment management firm. In January, we are launching our 4-week holistic Wellness Challenge on nutrition, movement and mindset. Employees will group into teams or participate on their own and will receive daily challenges to improve energy levels, reduce stress and prioritize self-care, eat to support their physical and mental well-being, improve sleep, and boost their mood. As part of the program, participants will also receive weekly meal plans, workouts, and access to HEAL’s team of nutritionists for additional guidance. These resources are optional to use but are intended to provide support for those who would like it. Participants and teams can also win some great prizes!
A well-executed wellness challenge offers an engaging format to encourage employees to adopt healthier habits. For example, in the Wellness Challenges we’ve ran since the start of the pandemic, over 94% of participants surveyed reported feeling less stressed, happier, had more energy, and were more active.
“I KNEW I needed to take this challenge when it came up. I was fully burn out on WFH, was barely being active, and wasn't really thinking about the meals I was making. This challenge ...because it was so spaced out and only increased in small increments at a time...made it feel SO doable. I'm so grateful to this challenge and my team of coworkers.” - Wellness Challenge Participant @ Klick Health
If you’re looking for a fun way to promote wellness in your office, connect your virtual or hybrid workplace, and encourage camaraderie and teamwork, then a wellness challenge is a great program to run.
Another one of our clients, a financial tech company, is kicking off the year with a 6-webinar Mental Wellness Series. This series focuses on the various ways in which individuals can prioritize their mental health, through their nutrition, movement, lifestyle practices and mindset. Employees get a taste of different perspectives as each webinar is hosted by a different expert including our Nutritionists, Naturopaths, Registered Social Workers, Mindfulness & Meditation Experts and Yoga Instructors. There is also mental health training for managers, so they understand the importance of destigmatizing mental health challenges and how to broach the subject with employees.
Offering a mental wellness series can help reduce the stigma around mental health issues and make it more likely that someone suffering from mental health concerns will seek help. Webinars are also an opportunity to go in depth into topics that are of interest to your teams. You can always run a single webinar to gain a pulse on the level of interest and engagement. Following the webinar, we can survey your teams to see what they liked about the session and if there are other topics that are of interest to them.
“The Busting Stress & Boosting Happiness webinar was an informative session. The webinar provided an overview of how to understand stress, and ways to manage it through nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness. The team valued the tips provided, and it was a great way to wrap up the HEAL Wellness Challenge.” - Jennifer Chia, HR Administrator @ Seaspan
Another client, DP World (Canada) Inc., a logistics and supply chain company based out of Vancouver, has been running new variations of our wellness challenge for the past five years. This year, we proposed a new program that preserved the challenge format, but that could be turned into a full year of health and wellness programming instead of just 4, 8 or 12 weeks.
Every month of the year covers a new theme (based on employee feedback surveys) and each month kicks off with a webinar hosted by a new expert on a specific topic. Examples of topics include physical wellness, financial wellness, nutritional wellness, and emotional wellness. Employees then determine what tasks they’d like to focus on for the month and can earn points for completing daily or weekly challenges. They then have access to these experts through group coaching sessions for even more accountability.
This program is like our usual 4- or 8-week wellness challenge in that there is education, accountability, motivation, and team collaboration, but this program encourages employees to prioritize their well-being year-round and gives them access to a wider range of wellness experts.
In addition to these examples, some of our clients are running longer wellness challenges, are combining a challenge with live yoga or meditation sessions, or are running a challenge along with year-round webinars and wellness newsletters, to keep the momentum going year-round.
If you’d like to chat with our team about creating a customized wellness program, click here to get in touch today.
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