Our most recent wellness challenge was a pedometer contest. Our employees took 52,000,000 steps toward better health in five months. We are very proud of this accomplishment. Not bad for a company that is turning 45 years old this year!

We have been deeply involved with managing health since 1985, when Corporate Fitness & Health opened their doors for the first time. One of the more difficult challenges is to keep members engaged in wellness over the long haul.

If your company is like ours, turning 45 is good news in many ways and potentially bad news too. We can safely assume you want an experienced group of professionals working hard to keep your self funded plan working properly and, most importantly, delivering results. And like many things in business, we face the same talent retention challenges that many employers do. We need to keep our experienced team healthy and in top form and we need to be mindful to head off many of the maladies that (statistically) start to creep in right around the age of 45. If our people aren't healthy, it makes it difficult for us to do a good job for you. We are confident that you can draw many parallels of this example into your organization.

Many of our customers like to know what we are up to with our own wellness initiatives. Some of you even compete head on with us for fitness contests, which we absolutely love and continue to encourage!

Below are some of the amazing results that we would like to share:

We created teams of 2 and had five months to walk, run and bike to see which team would get the most steps.

79% of our employees participated in the challenge

73% of participants logged steps 90% of the time (seven days a week)

We tracked our members with pedometers that downloaded their recorded data to a company wide website which posted the progress of each team and individual. We helped make achieving their goals more fun by setting out walking maps on Google Earth that showed where each person and team were as their miles accumulated throughout the contest. Of the 73% of our members that logged steps 90% of the time, 91% made it all the way to Atlantic City!!

31% of participants averaged 10,000 steps or more a day (the recommendation for general health and well-being)

We handed out prizes for individuals and for teams as goals were met. DGB as a whole took 52,000,000 steps which earned our company a new dumbbell set and rack for the company Fitness Room!

Top Team Finishers:
     1st Place The Spinners- 4,394,686 Steps
     2nd Place Team SOCO- 4,335,871 Steps
     3rd Place Wandering Walkers- 4,194,891 Steps

Sharing the results of our pedometer contest is a small example of how staying focused can contribute to lower health care costs and create a positive atmosphere at work. Keeping it fun and engaging over the long haul is hard work, but it has been worth it for us. We would love to hear what your groups have been up to as well!