Healthy Workplace: Company Events

We’ve talked about improving employee wellness by encouraging healthy habits: eating right, exercising, and preventing repetitive stress injuries. In addition to these efforts, consider scheduling company events to encourage healthy habits in your workplace. These company events can be in-house, like health fairs. You could also transform your traditional company outings into events that promote employee wellness. Here are some ideas for events that will contribute to your healthy workplace.

Health fairs are a great way to encourage employee wellness in your workplace. It is important to begin the organizing process by setting goals for your health fair. Possible goals include:

• Introduce new/changed elements to your employee wellness programs/benefits
• Introduce employees to local vendors who can contribute to healthy habits (organic food vendors, personal trainers, volunteer groups, etc.)
• Screening employees for health issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other employee wellness concerns

After establishing these goals, you can begin the process of inviting vendors or local health experts to visit your workplace for the health fair. These events can encourage your employees to adopt healthy habits—and can perhaps alert them to medical problems that they were unaware of. Some employers even use participation in these health fairs as a perk in their health benefits. Employees who attend a health fair, or submit to a health evaluation, can get a break on their health care premiums.

In addition to health fairs, you can encourage employee wellness by transforming your normal employee outings—Christmas parties, picnics, bowling events—into health-conscious affairs. Think about your next upcoming event, and ask yourself these questions:

• Will your employees be active?
• Will your employees have access to healthy food?
• Will your employees do something good for others?

Strive to answer “yes” to 2 of these 3 questions as you plan your next employee outing. Instead of a company picnic with traditional fat-and-sugar-laden food, be sure to offer plenty of fruits, vegetables, and low-calorie food options. Instead of going to a movie as a group, organize a company volleyball team. And remember that healthy habits should keep the body and the mind healthy. Consider making your next company outing partially a volunteer effort. Encourage employees to bring a canned good for the local food bank to the company outing, or even spend part of your company outing volunteering at a local charity. These healthy company outings will encourage your employees to adopt healthy habits—and they should be fun, too!

Do your employee outings encourage employee wellness? Tell us your success stories below, or ask for advice from our staff and community members.

IMAGE: Courtesy of Flickr by Adelphi Lab Center