PBP launched a Wellness Program this summer, and the first round just ended with participating employees earning water bottles and ear buds – and sharing in $5,000 in company-sponsored gift cards to a store of their choice.
Partnered with Cigna, the new health insurer, employees volunteered for biometric screenings, blood pressure checks and more to improve their health- and their lives.
PBP’s Tim Biskup lost 25 lbs completing the challenge! Now, he’s always ready for jumping jacks.
Overall, PBP learned it scored better than the national average in many categories such as cholesterol rates and the low number of employees who use tobacco.
But PBP was also behind the national average in body-mass, or BMI readings, and the percentage of people with hypertension and pre-hypertension.
Always striving for the best
CFO/COO Tom Schubert launched the program with these words — Eat Less, Eat Healthier, and Exercise More.
PBP has committed to a four-part Wellness Program.
The first phase of the Wellness Program, “Exercise for Busy Bodies and Making Workouts Count,” kicked off with an office-wide meeting, inviting employees to reduce their health insurance deductibles, and win gift cards for various achievements. Those on the Wellness project team paired with the Progressive Gifts and Incentives (PGI) department to give out water bottles, exercise bands, and ear-buds as additional prizes.
The second phase, “Make Fitness Fun,” is where the real work started. For this Wellness Challenge, over the course of 8 weeks employees were asked to log 700 minutes of exercise, averaging 12 minutes per day. As a bonus challenge, the office was compared based on its East and West wings.
PBP Media’s Sharon McHugh kept spirits high with fun suggestions on incorporating healthy habits. Some of her tips:
- Walk around the block after dinner
- While watching tv, try walking up and down stairs during commercials
- Go on a walk once you’ve dropped your kids off at dance class or soccer practice, and
- Take the further parking spot for the extra distance.
And in the office, PBP employees can take two laps around the building to make a mile!
The next phase, “Best Moves for Faster Weight Loss,” has yet to start as the company awaits Cigna’s next plan of action. On September 10th, PBP will offer more raffled prizes to participants, and take on the next step towards a fitter future.
And the fourth and final phase, “Maintain Don’t Gain,” will run on a point-based system to help participants with weight management, getting active, and reducing stress throughout their daily routine.
So, how did PBP do?
- 37% of corporate employees participated
- 62 people completed the challenge, 36 women and 26 men
- 107,001 minutes were recorded, totaling 74.3 days of non-stop activity, and
- 6,160 minutes were recorded by the single highest employee.
$5,000 in total Visa gift card prizes were provided by PBP to boost employees’ energy.
In the end, East wing defeated West wing with the highest average in recorded minutes. However, the East team was carried by two “super-human” athletes with over 5,000 logged minutes each!
To wrap up the Wellness Challenge, the office celebrated with a collective lap around the building. Sharon’s closing words:
“What I enjoyed most was hearing people say they felt better since they started exercising. I don’t know if they were motivated by seeing their colleagues taking a walk at lunchtime, or by the promise of a gift card for completing the challenge, or by their own desire to get healthy, but 700 minutes was a real struggle for some people and I’m especially proud of those who pushed themselves to achieve that goal.”
With two more phases left, PBP employees are ready to tackle the next challenge with a work hard, play hard attitude.
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