Health/Wellness Contests

Miriam George

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-07-02 AT 10:41AM (CST)[/font][p]I am hoping some of you can help me. We have kicked off a Wellness Team and big quest for "wellness" for the next 12 months. We want to provide some exciting contests to emphasize health and wellness (other than traditional most pounds lost which doesn't offer incentive to those who have no weight to lose). If your company has done any contests and/or have a "wellness" program, please share your ideas with me.

Margaret Morford

How about most miles walked per month, run per month. Least junk food consumed, etc.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Nick

Our company has moved away from the contests involving wellness. It became increasingly difficult to judge the contests and not offend anyone. We moved toward giving the employees opportunities to reduce their monthly health insurance contributions by offering wellness credits. We have a number of events (stations) that employees can visit during the wellness carnival. (blood pressure, not smoking, blood sugar, HDL/LDL levels, Height/weight, etc.) The stations are all staffed by local medical professionals. The tests were conducted in private and we did not receive any results. We are informed how many took the test and how many wellness credits are earned. This way we can maintain confidentiality but still reward wellness and awareness. We offer $1.00 per station for participation (Awareness) and $2.00 per station for borderline levels and $4.00 per station for passing above borderline. Spouses are included in the wellness carnival and they receive 1/2 credit amounts. The wellness credits are applied directly to lower their monthly contribution pre-tax through a 125 plan.

Gillian

We are starting off in this direction as well. There is a website for WELCOA, the Wellness Council of America. They seem to have lots of resources and if you want to be a member, we did, it costs $365 per year.

Annie

Good luck, I think basically this is a very good idea, but be careful in the presentation. Our county requires all employees to get a yearly "wellness examination" paid for by the county. This includes HDL/LDL, complete blood, blood pressure, pap smear, mammogram for women over 40 and prostate check for men. This must be completed by December 31 or non-participating employees are "fined" 5% of the yearly insurance cost, which was over $500 last year. The county also requires each employee to exercise 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week for an 8 week period. Exercise must be "approved", logged and witnessed or another 5% penalty. The result is that all the employees are so angry at being "forced" to participate that they will not participate in any of the other programs such as Weight Watchers, smoking cessation, reflexology demonstrations, stress control, etc. Again, although I think this is basically a good idea, avoid demanding that employees participate. That leads to our dilemma where employees won't participate just to "show you" that you can't make them.