Motivating Coworkers (a little long)

Hi All,
I would like your input if I may. I want to start some kind of fitness thing at work. I apologize for the vague language. Here's some background.
At work the only wellness program that we have in place is a program called Vital Signs. Essentially it rewards employees who consistently and regularly have their vitals monitored and recorded as well as turning in evidence of getting regular checkups, mamograms, blood work, protate exams, etc. At the end of the year they get various "rewards" (free lunch, gift certificate to walmart or gas cards and after a certain amount of time they PDO (paid day off) credit. Anyway, it's a decent program that allows people the freedom to do what they want to lower blood pressure lose weight etc but the person in charge of it (the employee wellness coordinator) doesn't really do anything but keep records and put up a bulletin board each month. Most people don't even know who she is.
Anyway, on my floor everyone always comes to me for advice about exercise, explanations of new, trendy exercise equipment, workout routines, etc. My degree is in exercise physiology. I want to start something on my floor and possibly extend it hospital wide, but I need some guidance regarding how to start. I have a lot of ideas that would work with Vital Signs I think. For instance, I'm not experienced enough to lead road rides, but I'd like to start a cycling club of sorts that would meet and ride the Rail Trail a couple of times a week. Try to arrange free monthly workshops or talks from various fitness professionals (yoga instructors, cyclists, personal trainers, etc) to give people some ideas of what kind of exercise they'd like to engage in. Doing body fat measurements etc. Things like that. I'd love to see the hospital organize a community event like a walk or ride to raise money for something (something similar to the American Heart Association's Heart Walk). I guess I'd like some suggestions on how to get this started and how to present it to the current wellness coordinator and/or whoever else this kind of thing has to go through.
I appreciate ya'll reading this and I'd deeply appreciate any help you might offer.
Thanks,
Gray

Would the current wellness coordinator be willing to work with you? Sounds like she's not really coordinating any wellness! You have great ideas! I'm sure others on TE will have useful suggestions.

The first thing I'd do is talk to the current wellness coordinator about your ideas. You don't want to be duplicating effort and it's possible that she already has ideas like yours planned for implementation at some point. That would also ensure that no one accuses you of trying to invade someone else's work-turf! Before you talk to her, do a bit of research to find out what wellness programs other organizations have in place. I suspect that organizations tend to focus heavily on what is easily available to them. I work at a college and our employee wellness program has two components--exercise and education. When you sign up for the wellness program, you agree to try to get 3 hours of exercise a week and two hours of wellness education over the semester, then the college makes it easy for you by offering classes at the fitness center and lunchtime education programs so you can meet these requirements. So it makes sense to me that at a hospital the program would focus heavily on the vital signs that you describe! And what you want to do is try to stretch the current program a bit, possibly in a direction that the current wellness coordinator might agree is a great direction, but a bit more difficult to implement. So you want to be able to present the ideas to her as you making her job easier--you're supporting what she's doing and offering to help develop new ideas and coordinate the classes and rides, all under the umbrella of the wellness program she coordinates (translation: you do the work, she gets the credit. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing!).

When you talk to her, have a couple of very concrete ideas in place--group ride on the rail trail twice a month on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m., meeting at such-and-such a location. All she'd have to do is make up some flyers and put your name on as "contact for more information." Simple. Workshops/talks at the worksite are a bit more complicated since they involve reserving a place to meet and bringing in an outside person to run the workshop (and that person may want to be paid), so you'd want to have with you the name of a person willing to do this sort of thing, preferably for free to start.

But I think that along with bringing concrete suggestions for things that would be easy to implement, you don't want to overwhelm her--start with just a couple of things and if the response is good, add ideas from there. With any luck, once she sees a couple of successful programs like this, she'll take the idea and run with it so you don't have to be so heavily involved.

Good luck!

Sarah

I agree with everyone on checking with the Wellness director. Could be she would love someone with your experience to help her out.

We have a cycling club at my office. We have a group email address to which you have to request to be added. Rides are announced and people say whether or not they are able to come. It's pretty informal, but it is a lot of fun.

I was thinking that an easy "challenge" to do would be a "step challenge" - with cheap pedometers. People in hospitals walk a lot - it may be very encouraging to see how many steps they are actually taking.

One of my former employers had an excellent wellness program that did motivate quite a number of employees ...at different times for different activities.

In working with the wellness coordinator, your company might want to partner with non-profit organizations ie. the YWCA/YMCA, local cycling group that already have someone who has information to provide a lunch hr. session, etc.

this employer brought in a trained kinesiologist where person did take body fat measurements, weight and gave info. as starting point for interested employees.

For cycling, walking or running activities, consider a fun cumulative mileage/distance thing which perhaps one could visually show on a map over time and as a visual motivator.

At our workplace, our company nurse implements Wellness Wednesdays with various doctors in the area. It was once a week, but now it is about once a month (budget cuts). She brings in chiropractors, dermatologists, mobile mammography, etc. The checkups are usually free. She has also gotten several weight loss (Weight Watchers) groups started as well as a local yoga instructor came by for a bit. Some of us do charity rides and walks on our own and the response is good. I think if you ran your ideas by her and got a bike group started you would be surprised to see how it will grow. I personally got a Christmas Angel Tree project and an employee art/talent show started at my company and they have now become corporate sponsored annual events. All it takes is promoting your idea and getting a few close friends/co-workers to join in. Hmmm… now you have me thinking - I will try and get a bike group together at my workplace too! Good luck and keep us posted.

This may be useful, just pick and choose anything that seems appropriate :)

In Norway we have a nation-wide Bike to Work Campaign, but it only runs in spring, through May and June, I think. A couple of years ago they started asking hefty entry fees to join (:confused: :eek:) so my workplace just opted out and started our own. We now have our own campaign that runs all through the summer months, and then my baby, our very own Winter Campaign, starts up :D The summer campaign (about 70 people) has it's own web page, the winter one (about 30 people) is just a spreadsheet. In both you enter your km for the day, then you can click to see the results sorted by no. of times biked OR no. of kms biked. Which means that both people who ride often (but maybe not that far), and people who have a long way (but can't be bothered to ride that often) get to be visible.

When I've tried to motivate people, I think of what motivates me. We have some prizes, but the "winners" are just drawn randomly from the bunch of people who have ridden more than 5 times. The most avid cyclists aren't the ones who need motivating anyway, IMO. What most people appreciate is having someone to compete against, being seen and having someone cheering them on. So I make a point out of noticing who's in the campaign, mentioning the most eager ones lately, or the newcomers, by name in a joint email from time to time, and this year I took a round of teh house and handed out chocolates to everyone who'd logged kms in NOvember and I'll do the same next month. I'm also planning a very basic mechanics class, just so that nobody has to go to their lbs just to check their bikes, change a flat, switch tires, and adjust their brakes.

Ok, that's the bike part. We also have a very enthusiastic physiotherapist who everybody tries to avoid :D because she's forever after us to switch office chairs, or do stretches or something... But I'd much rather focus on the fun fitness stuff.