Summer Wellness Challenge Ideas
As we enjoy the summer sun, fresh air, and seasonal produce, it’s a great time to support employee wellness, engagement, and productivity, by encouraging healthy living!
Here are a few simple summer wellness challenges ideas to consider.
1. Nutrition Challenge Ideas
There are many benefits to healthy eating and fresh, local produce is a great source of nutrition as it’s generally free of preservatives or chemicals. Summer fruits and vegetables also contain the antioxidants and nutrients required to sustain that specific climate. For example, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and watermelon contain high water content, to help prevent dehydration, while berries, lemons, limes, avocados, apples, cherries, tomatoes, mangos, corn, and beans, are high in fiber and antioxidants.
Consider implementing nutrition wellness challenge activities to boost employee immune systems and promote healthy homemade food. Challenge ideas include hosting weekly summer potlucks with rewards for the healthiest summer dishes, creating a sustainability challenge where employees grow their produce, and /or offering coupons for local farmers markets.
2. Physical Health Challenge Ideas
With lots of opportunities for fresh air and sunshine, summer is a great time to re-invigorate your employee wellness programs with new wellness activities. Aim to keep the employees active, engaged, and healthy by creating summer-themed physical health challenges such as 30 minutes of daily summer exercise, 8K daily step count, bike to work initiatives, encouraging employees to take the stairs, and/or hosting swimming competitions or other outdoor activities where employees can compete. Bonus for implementing employee wellness challenges that are compatible with wearable devices and fitness apps, so it’s easier for employees to track and share their physical activities.
3. Emotional Wellbeing Challenge Ideas
Mental and emotional health has become increasingly important and offering employees opportunities to disconnect from daily emotional stressors can help promote healthy living and stress management. While many corporate wellness programs include mental health challenges, summer-themed options include outdoor yoga sessions, motivating talks, breathing exercises, personal coaching sessions, and hobby sessions.
4. Social Wellness Challenges Ideas
With so much to do in so little time, employees often find it difficult to maintain work-life balance. To help promote both social interactions and balanced living, employers should consider summer-themed corporate wellness challenge ideas such as coordinating volunteer opportunities, virtual or in-person learning sessions, encouraging employees to create weekly to-do lists to organize their time and days, and providing opportunities for employees to reconnect with their co-workers and others for their social, occupational, and emotional wellbeing.
5. Financial Health Challenge Ideas
During these uncertain economic times, employers can help promote personal financial health by offering employee financial wellness challenge ideas and workplace benefits packages that may include health insurance, HSAs, 401(K) plans, paid leaves, maternity/paternity leaves, student loans & scholarships, and more.
We hope you and your teams enjoy a happy healthy summer and make the most of your employee wellbeing programs!