Utilizing Gamification For Employee Fitness And Corporate Wellness

Every dollar invested in a wellness program generates $7 in health care savings -University of Louisville

Health promotion has become a prime factor of organizational culture, fostering productive employees. But as more and more organizations adopt best practices for their employees, gamification has effectively boosted the wellness program's participation.

Gamification is a powerful tool for promoting employee engagement and worksite culture. Gartner's study reports that nearly 70% of global organizations will employ at least one gamified application in their corporate environment.

Read on to learn more about the concept behind Gamification and how it can transform your workforce to yield better productivity.

What is Gamification?

In simple terms, it is the application of game elements in a non-game context.
Gamification strategies can be used to accomplish any desired task or inculcate any desired behavior.

The theory behind gamification is that people naturally desire to socialize, thrive in a competitive set up and enjoy achieving a the rewards and recognitions that come with their accomplishments.

Consider the membership cards that your local shopping mall, gym or multiplexes offer. You get reward points, discounts, VIP status and what not as the benefits of your continued purchases.

These type of customer loyalty programs make you feel valued as a customer and enforce a sense of exclusivity in your mind --- an accomplishment! It in turn motivates you to keep repeating a certain behavior --- case in point purchasing the services and goods of said business establishments.

Elements of Gamification

The concept of gamification has proved to be quite effective in many business ventures, the ever-growing Fitness world being one of them. Some people view gamification as a form of behavior modification with the use of technology.

The digital system of gamification proves to be successful in many ways. The entire workforce of a company can be reached out with just the click of a button! There is a provision of instant feedback. Also, rewards and achievements are displayed and last longer.

The rule of gamification is simple: Turn a desired behavior into a fun activity!

The Game Set-up

There are certain qualities that help make gamification more engaging:

• Collaboration

• Community

• Competition

• Points

• Leveling up

• Goals

• Badges

• Fast feedback

• Transparency

• Onboarding

The most addictive games are often found to involve all the elements listed above. Likewise, for a corporate wellness program to be executed successfully these gamification elements are immensely helpful.

Another important pointer for employers seeking to launch a successful employee wellness program is to have the consent of all their employees who are participating.

Research shows that when employees are required to play a game the fun factor decreases as it becomes a chore and in turn decreases their engagement. So bear in mind that fun things are less fun when they are a requirement.

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How Vantage Fit App Combines Game Elements With Its Corporate Wellness Program

The Vantage Fit app has included gamification techniques in a manner that makes it desirable so far as employee engagement and wellness platforms are concerned. The app enables employers to create simple and engaging wellness programs and challenges that aim to improve employee health. After all, a healthy lifestyle amounts to better productivity in the workplace!

Here are some of the basic and effective gamification techniques that Vantage Fit incorporates to give your employees the best workplace experience.

1. Leaderboard

Vantage Fit is equipped with a real-time transparent leaderboard. By showcasing who is doing what, this in-built leaderboard enhances a healthy competition among your employees to grab the top spot. This will help make your corporate wellness program much more engaging and also boost sportsmanship spirit among your employees.

2. Create Contest

Friendly competitions act as great motivators in our lives. Moreover, it is human nature to feel compelled to perform when faced with a challenge. Vantage Fit provides you the perfect platform to introduce in-house wellness campaigns irrespective of the geographical location of your organization. You, as an employer, get the liberty to create and modify health challenges to enhance the employee experience.

The platform also comes with various health challenges like walkathons with daily and weekly customizable targets. Group based workplace wellness challenges are also part of the options that the app provides which takes the competition to the next level. That way, under a little helpful peer pressure, your employees will surely be encouraged to perform better while building up team camaraderie at the same time.

3. Customizable Trophies and Badges

Badges and trophies distinguish our progress. They also make us feel accomplished.

Plus, they are fun to collect.

With our customizable trophies and badges, you can show your appreciation to your employees for each goal they accomplish. This will surely help to boost the morale of your workforce.

4. Personalized Health Diary

The users can keep a daily log of their fitness regime, which includes daily activities and meals, using this feature. This helps them to track their progress and gives them an honest idea about how far they have to go in their health journeys. Without these, the users might feel lost and lose their motivation to keep striving for a healthier lifestyle.

5. Fitness Points and Gift Cards

To make the transition to a healthy lifestyle more lucrative, Vantage Fit app provides a point-based rewarding system. This is a flexible system that helps the employers to save up on their employee health care costs.

The fitness points are allocated to an employee’s unified wallet once they complete a health task.The employer also gets to chose how these points get distributed among the employees.

The fitness points can be redeemed by the employees as gift cards from our growing list of global brands. This feature is available globally. They can also redeem these gift cards directly from the app itself to purchase items from various e-commerce and in-store brands.

Also Read: Wellness Incentive Ideas To Boost Your Corporate Programs

6. Employee Engagement

Gamification can be easily used to change workplace culture. Setting up a challenge as simple as a step-counting challenge or activities like walking or running a certain distance and even dividing your employees into teams can boost engagement and motivate your employees.

Transform your workforce into a healthy and happy community by associating with Vantage Fit!

Let’s make fitness FUN!

Debajit Baruah is an entrepreneur, marketer and analyst. He is a Digital marketer for Vantage Circle and authors in-depth guides that teach the importance of fitness and wellbeing in the corporate world. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com