10 Fun Wellness Activities for the Workplace
Promoting wellness in the workplace shows that your company values employees’ physical and mental health, not just their output.
40% of graduating college seniors in 2023 served by LaSalle Network said insurance coverage for therapy is the number one employer benefits they want. Today’s employers must prioritize their people’s wellness if they want to attract new talent and retain existing employees.
In this blog, we list six ways to improve the well-being of employees, whether they’re in the office or working remotely. We also mention some fun work wellness challenges to consider organizing.
However, we want to note early on that these activities are not solutions for a disengaged, unhealthy workforce. They are simply ideas that may help you see how wellness can be integrated into your organization. To truly improve employee well-being, you’ll want to work with a professional who can strategically develop a wellness program that meets your employees’ needs and your company’s goals.
3 Wellness Activities for Office Employees
Retreat-style meetings
Integrating corporate wellness into meetings is not a waste of time, but a catalyst for innovative ideas and solutions. Wellness work meetings can be held in two formats:
On-Location
Adding curated wellness activities for office employees into meetings can foster creativity and collaboration. This can be especially helpful during a time when you’re planning to reach big goals or launch a new product. Start with nutritious catering, take movement breaks, and share relevant educational content on wellness, all within the workplace setting.
Off-Site Venue
A wellness-infused meeting includes everything an on-location meeting would have, except it’s hosted at a deluxe venue to match your desired energy and outcome for your meeting. This approach aims to enhance the overall effectiveness of the meeting by nurturing the physical and mental well-being of participants.
If possible, these retreats are especially impactful if your remote employees can join in person. Being in a physical setting with coworkers can spark conversations they may not have had over Teams or Slack.
Schedule regular yoga classes
Yoga can be a wellness activity that improves employee wellbeing whether people are in the office or remote. Bring in a yoga instructor regularly to teach yoga sessions during breaks or after work hours that are streamed and recorded for remote employees. Yoga not only promotes physical flexibility and strength but also contributes to stress reduction and mental clarity, enhancing both physical and mental well-being.
Offer massage therapy
From muscle aches and pains to increasing your risk of heart disease, unmanaged or chronic stress can wreak havoc on virtually any part of your body. Massage therapy is another way to improve the well-being of employees by releasing muscle tension and helping them relax. You can pay for employees to get massages at a local spa or hire a massage therapist to come onsite and provide massages at the office.
Don’t forget about your out-of-office employees! New research shows that remote and hybrid employees tend to experience higher rates of mental health issues. Let’s look at some wellness activities for remote employees that can help them manage their mental health at home.
3 Wellness Activities for Remote Employees
Group wellness coaching
Wellness activities for remote employees don't have to be physical. Emphasizing the importance of taking care of your health through education is a great way to promote wellness for remote employees. Host coached group programs for your remote employees led by experts who hold degrees in areas like exercise science and have credentials in nutrition, yoga, and meditation. For specific workplace environments, such as manufacturing sites, athletic trainers and physical therapists can cater to the unique needs of those employees.
Private virtual coaching
Financial coaches, detox specialists, and professionals who can speak to the management of chronic conditions like diabetes and cancer are great people to include in a corporate wellness program. Hiring coaches who are experts in a particular topic is one way to address specific wellness challenges employees in your organization are facing. When you work with a company like ProMotion Corporate Wellness to develop a managed wellness program, you can expect a custom plan that considers employees’ unique situations and finds ways to incorporate wellness solutions like private virtual coaching.
Organize online book clubs
Another one of the ways to improve the well-being of employees is to organize an online book club. While wellness education and physical exercise are certainly good wellness activities for remote employees, a book club can widen the net to engage more employees. Cover a range of genres from classic literature and personal development to insightful biographies. Reading is a healthy hobby for people to have outside of work that keeps your brain active and promotes mental and emotional fitness.
4 Fun Work Wellness Challenges
Step Into Wellness
Transform the mundane into a game by launching a "Stairway to Wellness" challenge. Encourage employees to ditch the elevator and take the stairs whenever possible. Track and celebrate the collective number of flights climbed each week at work using pedometers or fitness watches. This fun work wellness challenge takes a simple daily routine and makes it an energizing fitness activity that promotes cardiovascular health.
Deskercise Olympics
Turn the workplace into a wellness arena! Organize “deskercise” challenges that employees can do at their workstations, whether they’re in the office or remote. From chair squats to walking on an under-desk treadmill, these activities inject energy into the workday. You can set short-term (one day) or long-term (one week/month) goals that departments compete to meet for a wellness-inspired reward.
Healthy Recipe Showdown
Host a healthy recipe competition where employees showcase their culinary skills by preparing and sharing nutritious dishes at a potluck. Select a few judges who rate the dishes and pick a winner who gets bragging rights (not every challenge needs a prize!) For remote employees, you can simply encourage them to make a meal and eat it on a social video call, sharing the recipe with others—while it’s not competitive, it serves its purpose of promoting wellness in the workplace.
Desk Detox Challenge
Help employees revitalize their workspace by challenging them to declutter their desks. A tidy and organized workspace not only enhances productivity but also contributes to overall well-being. Encourage team members to share their decluttering tips and before-and-after desk transformations. You can also challenge employees to do the same for their digital workspace, deleting old files cluttering their desktops, and creating a more organized folder system that allows them to find digital documents quickly.
While these fun work wellness challenges and activities may engage your employees initially, there won't be lasting change without a strategy driving them. A corporate wellness partner like ProMotion Corporate Wellness can help you develop a managed wellness program that creates sustainable change and drives measurable results in your organization.
Corporate Wellness Programs That Make a Measurable Difference
Today, wellness benefits aren’t just a nice perk for employees; promoting wellness in the workplace delivers a measurable ROI.
At ProMotion Corporate Wellness, we develop corporate wellness programs for companies that understand that the health of their company is the wealth of their company. You're not just investing in a program; you're investing in the vitality of your team and the prosperity of your organization.
Using our High-Performance Wellness Program Framework™, we take a tailored approach to developing corporate wellness programs, aligning them with your company's goals and your employees’ unique needs.
Book a free consultation to learn more about how we can create a workplace where your team not only performs at their best but also lives their best.
