This month, #TeamTellwell embarked on the “Well Tell Challenge,” a wellness challenge to help our team develop healthy eating habits and stay in shape. There’s a points system and prizes and everything. We’ve never been more excited to eat vegetables and walk to work.
Team Tellwell is ready to get swoll.
But wait. Why are we doing this?
It started with a survey.
A few months ago, Max set up OfficeVibe — a weekly automated survey that asks thoughtful questions to everyone on the team. Some questions require a short blurb of writing, most are on a sliding scale either from 1-10, bad to great, and so on. All answers are anonymous. It’s a way to keep a pulse on, well, the office vibe, if you will — and one of a few ways that we at #TeamTellwell make an effort to create and sustain an awesome workplace culture.
For the most part, Max seems to be happy with the results *yay Tellwell!* However, a few weeks ago, there was one question about the workplace that resulted in a few low ratings. The question was this:
“Do you feel your workplace cultivates a healthy environment?”
Well… there’s beer and soda in the fridge, sometimes pizza for lunch, and a seemingly regenerative box of donuts on the counter. (The donuts are usually a gift, to be fair.) Nevertheless, we chuckled as we asked each other about the question. “Healthy” is not the first word that came to mind when we thought about our office.
And just like that, Max swooshed into action like a North Dakota wind.
Before we knew it, Max set up a gym membership opportunity for our team. Tellwell now covers a gym membership to Anytime Fitness, as long as we go to the gym up to 12 times a month. Max told us this over a lunch of olives, hummus, and pita bread — another step towards Tellwellwellness.
But then, on April 2, he unveiled the true wellness extravaganza: The Well Tell Challenge.
Taking inspiration from a family wellness challenge developed by a nutritionist friend, Max put together a point system correlated with different health-building habits. Here’s the breakdown:
Want to customize? Here’s the InDesign file
A few notes:
- Workouts have less points than healthy eating habits. This is because, while exercise is important, healthy eating habits are important for sustaining true wellness — and are often the more mindless habits that we don’t pay attention to. For instance, I’ve already had to slap my hand away from the chocolate bar on my desk a few times, and it’s only been a few days.
- Sometimes, these challenges can lead to binging. I.e., “Well, I already ate some of my chocolate, I might as well eat the whole chocolate bar since I can’t earn those points for the day anymore. Heck, I’ll eat TEN CHOCOLATE BARS.” Stay strong, friends. Don’t fall into the binging trap!
- Highest points?
- Drinking 60 oz of water.
- No soda, booze, or carbonated beverages.
- Going a whole day without sweets.
- We’ve customized this system to fit our workplace; if you choose to use this for your own office, feel free to adjust and adapt as you need!
Every individual is responsible for their own point tracking, and points are logged in a spreadsheet on a week-to-week basis. Take a look:
Here’s the InDesign file for this one!
The end date: June 30, just before our “summer break”, the week of July 4th. Of course, the real goal is to establish habits that last well beyond the beach bods of summer.
But wait… there’s more. After all, what’s a challenge without a little motivation?
Yes, we’re talking prizes.
First place: $250
Second place: $150
Third place: $100
A competitive gleam alighted into our eyes when Max said this. He quickly jumped in: “Remember, the goal is to celebrate each other, not be too competitive.” Of course, we said, as we each planned our domination.
Truly, though, the whole goal of this is not for money or points. We asked Max why this challenge was important:
“One of the things that makes Tellwell different is that we’re not just asking for feedback. We want to grow and adapt,” he said. “We recognized that we weren’t as active as we wanted to be. Individually, we each wanted to start a healthier lifestyle. By getting the whole team together for a challenge, we’re creating a positive environment around wellness.”
Want to join us?
While we can’t offer you any prize money, we’d love to see other workplaces take up the challenge! These PDFs are downloadable and free to share. You can customize and make them your own, or use them as is. When it comes to spreading wellness, everybody wins!
Let the games begin. Keep following us on social + this blog for updates! Good luck out there!
And remember…
