Top tips to get tech employees engaged in worksite wellness

Technology employees, like many office workers, are challenged with high stress and long hours, putting them at risk for the “sitting disease”—or sitting all day at their desk—resulting in increased risk for poor health and disease.

The typical reason we hear tech employees give for not engaging in workplace well-being: They perceive it takes too much time.

While common threads exist between tech employees and office workers—there are some areas where they diverge. To best engage this population, we’ve found success with tailoring our approach in several ways:

Time savers. Change their perception of how much time it takes to be healthy—offering short, convenient sessions for fitting in fitness.
In it to win it. Play to a common characteristic found in tech employees: Competitiveness. Whether the incentive prize is a water bottle, stretch band, free exercise class—or even bragging rights—a competitive component engages employees in corporate well-being programs and challenges.
High-tech expectations. Tech employees naturally are comfortable with technology—and expect to use it with how we engage them in programs.
Here are four successful approaches we use at client sites to engage technology employees.

1. Reduce sitting disease with a health coach
Consider offering health coaching and health advising to inspire workers—both tech and non-tech employees—to move more and sit less. We have found that among our clients, these two solutions offer greater impact compared to other well-being programs. In fact:

Health advising participants are 8 percent more likely than those who only took a health assessment to improve prolonged sitting risk scores.
Coaching participants are 12 percent more likely than those who only took a health assessment to improve prolonged sitting risk scores.
2. At-desk workouts
To encourage technology employees at a financial services company to sit less and move more, HealthFitness staff host 15-minute stretch/energy breaks in conference rooms where employees learn workouts to do at their desks. At the end of the training session, employees receive their own stretch band along with laminated cards and handouts featuring the desk exercises.

3. High-tech marketing
Tech-savvy employees at this large technology company expect and embrace high-tech, innovative ways to learn about health and well-being. To promote the on-site fitness center, HealthFitness staff create interactive posters with QR codes. Employees then simply scan areas of the poster to link to digital content, including video tours of the on-site fitness center.

4. Build a Bike Challenges
Employees at a large biotech company tap into the expertise of HealthFitness corporate fitness staff to lead fun team-building activities—including an obstacle course where employees assemble new bicycles, race around the corporate campus, and then donate the fully-built and safety-checked bikes to a children’s charity.

Learn more
Please contact us to learn how to partner with HealthFitness to inspire and engage employees in their health and well-being.