As a workplace wellness facilitator, I’ve always tried to find activities that can engage staff located in different areas and those working different shifts. During this pandemic, my Fit & Well Group (focused on all areas of wellness) has gotten more attention than ever before! I launched this group back in October 2015 and since then had been organizing monthly lunch and learn talks on various health topics. I also would launch various health challenges. As we are being asked to keep physical distancing and as many of us are still working from home, these virtual activities have had more staff engaged than ever before!

For the month of August, I am launching a Step Challenge. Every participant must login their weekly steps (Monday to Friday – for the month of August) on a spreadsheet created through Google Sheets so everyone can access via link. All you need is a device to be able to count your steps (it can be a FitBit, Garmin, Apple Watch – or even an app on your phone).

Everyone who achieves the minimum 30,000 steps EACH week (6,000 steps Monday to Friday) will be eligible for the draw to win a gift card from Amazon. With the support of our Staff Forum Committee, who’s mission is to promote staff engagement through activities such as these, we have prizes to give out to the winners (usually an Amazon gift card as it too can be sent via email to the winners.

We will have three prizes for the participants who achieved the 30,000 steps (via draw for all qualifiers) and ONE prize for the most improved overall (so the person who has stepped it up from week to week). The goal is to motivate participants to beat their OWN best taking into consideration that everyone is at a different fitness level.

This activity is more than about striving for the prize. It’s about motivating you to Step It Up and allows you to connect/see what other colleagues are doing even if we’re not onsite together.

If you’d like more information or details on how to get this setup at your workplace, please comment below or email me at healthy4life360@yahoo.com