Get your employees active and focusing on their wellbeing by choosing the right prizes.
Are you setting up a wellness challenge but don't know what to give as a prizes? The prize selection can make or break your challenge - if they're not lucrative enough, you'll struggle to get participation.
Choose prizes based on your employee's hobbies and interests for the best participation.
You can use the FitPros Wellbeing App to host challenges and track their progress via leaderboards. The app gamifies challenges, rewarding employees with badges and showcasing their progress toward completion. We also distribute wellness challenge prizes to help make your challenges successful!
Key takeaways:
Pick wellness prizes based on employee’s hobbies and interests
Provide a mix of prizes for challenge winners and participation
Use the FitPros Wellbeing app to gamify your challenges
What is a wellness challenge?
A wellness challenge is a healthy competition among employees to encourage positive lifestyle behavior change. For example, challenges might include moving more and sitting less, getting more or better quality sleep, meditating, or doing daily yoga. For the best results, challenges should be customized to your employees.
What is a good prize for a fitness challenge?
Choosing the right prizes for your wellness or fitness challenge will help motivate and get more employees involved.
Prizes can vary and can be distributed to winners, runners-up, or even a sweepstakes prize for all entrants who completed the challenge. Below, you will find twelve wellness challenge prize ideas for work:
1 — A gift card or cash prize
One of the most popular wellness challenge prize ideas is a gift card. You can set an amount, perhaps $100 to be spent on popular sites such as Amazon for employees to choose what they want to buy for their prize.
And while gift cards are easy to do and fun, some employees may prefer a cash prize. So do your research before buying a gift card for a store that nobody shops at!
2 — Extra paid vacation days
All employees want extra paid vacation days. You don’t even have to ask! Reward employees with additional paid time off for challenge completion or for the challenge winner.
3 — Tickets to sporting events
This wellness challenge prize idea is a must-have for sports fans at work. Examples of sporting events might include tickets to a basketball game, Formula One, or the NFL.
For better participation, ask your employees what sporting events or other non-sporting events they enjoy.
4 — Office swag
There are lots of office swag options to kit out your employees, from baseball caps to three-quarter zips, hoodies, and insulated water bottles.
Other office swag ideas include:
Coffee mugs
Beer glasses
Notebooks
Socks
Laptop bags
Backpacks
Waterproof jackets
Tote bags
Quality workout gear
5 — A voucher for their favorite coffee shop
Chances are, most of your employees enjoy a hot cup of coffee. A voucher for a local coffee shop or larger coffee chain is a great way to help cut their monthly coffee costs. And as any avid coffee drinker will tell you, those expenses can build up quickly!
6 — A personalized gift basket
A gift basket can be as bespoke as you’d like. If your challenge is movement-related, it can be packed with items such as protein bars, shakers—not the cocktail kind—epsom salts, a water bottle, and other wellness products.
7 — A vacation
If you really want to get your employees engaged in your wellness challenges and you have the budget, you can offer a paid vacation. It doesn’t have to be a weekend at the Ritz in London, but it should be a nice getaway.
8 — A paid-for day out
If a paid-for vacation is out of budget, why not do a paid-for day out? It can be dinner and bowling or something a little more adventurous, perhaps tomahawk throwing?
Again, you can offer this prize to the overall challenge winner or as a team participation prize.
9 — A massage or spa day
Why not offer a massage or spa day to the winner of your challenge? This is especially rewarding for movement or step challenges. Simply purchase a massage or spa voucher and get your employees moving!
10 — Charitable donations
Wellness challenge prize ideas can also be charitable. You can use this as the main prize for the winner or as a separate prize for participation. For example, if all challenge participants complete the challenge, you’ll donate a set amount of money to a charity of their choice.
This is an excellent way to motivate your employees while giving back to your community.
11 — A fitness tracker
There’s no better wellness prize than a fitness tracker for wellness enthusiasts or those just starting their wellness or fitness journey. A Garmin or Polar is a good option if your employees are more active. If you’re looking for something a little more versatile and modern, an Apple or Google Watch are both fantastic options.
How to set up a wellness challenge at work?
Setting up a wellness challenge at work—or a series of challenges—can be very rewarding for your employee's health and productivity at work. For more benefits and a step-by-step guide on setting up a wellness challenge, read our workplace wellbeing challenge guide here.
Looking for more? Contact a Wellbeing Manager to discuss your organizational wellbeing needs.
We provide workplace teams with mindful practices, personal and professional wellbeing growth, fitness instruction, and opportunities for social connection. We aim to inspire the highest potential in people at work, in life, every day, so they can show up healthy and at their best.