Wellness Challenges in the Virtual Workplace

For many across the country, the sudden shift to work from home is an all new experience for both employees and employers.

As your employees settle into their new working conditions, this might be a good time to check in on how they are doing. Some are feeling not as connected with the team and their managers like they’re used to.

Keeping a pulse on their overall wellbeing is, of course, a must for HR leaders right now (and always), but let’s take some of the ways we would normally keep our workforce engaged and go virtual with them! Specifically, wellness challenges.

And with May recognized as Mental Health Month, there’s no better time to show your team that you’re there for them.

Challenge your employees to check in on their mental health, reach physical goals, and more. Encouraging your team to implement small (or large) goals into their daily at-home routine can act as a break from work goals, while still benefiting their wellness!

Challenge ideas

If you can’t check in on them physically, challenging your employees to hit major (or minor) goal-oriented milestones is a fun way to interact throughout the day. Here are some ideas to help you get started!

If your company utilizes Slack, create a wellness challenge channel for daily video stand up and status updates. If you don’t use Slack, it’s easy to create a video Zoom room (to sign up is free).

❌ Ditch a bad habit

They say it takes 21 days to break or change a bad habit, so challenge your employees to break their worst while working from home. For example, cutting down on cups of coffee and switching to tea!

Progress can be tracked on a calendar, and once the 21 days are up, have your employees take a snapshot of their completed calendar and send over to your marketing team.

This challenge would work great on your social media channels, showing the rest of your company and future prospects that you all still are working as a team, even in instances not directly related to work. Developing a hashtag to use will help employees be able to easily post their progress along the way and see others' progress.

Or, change this one up to build great habits! Challenge your employees to drink the recommended amount of water every day: 8-eight ounce glasses, which equals to just about two liters. Add a required video component to prove that participants are actually doing it!

Branded merch rec: Stainless steel water bottles

Holding 24 ounces, these bottles need to be filled just twice throughout the day to reach and exceed the recommended water goal! You can coordinate fill reminders via email, Slack, or your social channels!

Steps Challenge

For team members with less bandwidth, or maybe just want to participate in a straightforward challenge, hitting walking goals is a simple way to do so.

Challenge your employees to hit the popular, doctor-recommended ten-thousand step goal. This can be broken up throughout the day, or done over the lunch hour!

Encourage individuals to track their steps on their smartphone, smartwatch, or estimate with distance-calculating free mobile apps. Add reminders about the latest social distancing practices!

Once completed, ask for a screenshot or photo of the completed goal and share it on your company’s social media!

Mental Health

For many, mixing in work with their home space can lead to burnout and over-working minds and bodies. Not to mention being cooped up in the house. Because of this, it may be helpful to challenge your employees to check in with their mental health.

This challenge can include ways to de-stress such as doing a five minute meditation, creating a gratitude list, or a ten minute yoga practice. Practicing mindfulness reminds your workers of its importance, but also comforts them knowing you value it, too.

There are a number of apps out there that can help get started. We love Calm,Headspace, Insight Timer, and Simple Habit.

Branded merch rec: Wireless earbuds

Make tuning into a daily meditation that much easier with earbuds or headphones that cancel out the extra noise.

Many yoga studios have moved their practices online. Check the studios in your local community and see if they’re offering a group or corporate discount for team members to do virtual sessions.

We have been loving the online practices offered by a studio here in Boulder, Amana Yoga Studio.

Branded merch rec: Yoga mats

♻️ Reduce, reuse, recycle!

In the past couple of weeks, our planet’s level of air pollution and CO2 emissions have gone down significantly. In an effort to show Mother Earth even more love leading up to the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, challenge your employees to go the extra mile with sustainable practices around the house.

Incentivize and reward participation with branded merchandise

As your employees get comfortable working at home, provide the tools they will need to be successful. Using branded products for wellness challenges closes the circle once again between the company and its employees.

Whatever wellness challenge you decide, we can curate a kit based on the activity you're looking to promote and pack it full of items to motivate, encourage, and excite your team.

We can dropship the kits to your employees’ homes and coordinate the timing with the launch of the challenge.

Let’s create something together

Our branding experts can work with you to determine what items are perfect for your brand, employees, and the challenge you’re looking to initiate.