Virtual Vitality

As seen in canfitpro (Read here on page 46 of January/February edition, 2023).

"A workplace wellness intervention that helped employees form social connections and prioritize their health"

By Rachel Boorsma & Timothy Chan , with Tara (Elston) Dinyer

“Sandy, tell me about it …” 

Have you ever spent your lunch break dressed in full PPE doing a chair exercise to You’re the One That I Want from the hit musical Grease? This is just one of the activities that employees at an industry partner sites participated in during the Virtual Vitality Workplace Wellness Challenge in February 2022.  

“I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying... and I'm losing control.” 

While chills have been multiplying, challenges in the workplace have been as well. The impact of COVID-19 and its associated precautions left many individuals feeling worn out and isolated in their workspaces. Employees at the industry partner company noted that their employee engagement had been decreasing since the pandemic began, which was compounded by the fact that employees their employees not only worked at 2 different Ontario sites, but also were now working from home in a hybrid setting. These new working environments made it harder to run initiatives, focus on wellness, and connect with friends and colleagues in the organization. 

“Cause the power [we’re] supplying...” 

Mohawk College’s Health, Wellness and Fitness Program Coordinator, Tara Dinyer, reached out to industry partner with an idea for a virtual workplace wellness intervention. Virtual Vitality was a 7-day pilot study delivered over Microsoft Teams. 150 industry partner employees registered to participate and were randomized into 30 teams of five individuals each. Every day at 6:00 a.m., a set of challenges were sent to participants, who had 24 hours to complete them to earn “stars”. Challenges were organized into various dimensions of wellness (e.g., physical, social, emotional, intellectual, etc.), and assigned a star value based on the estimated time required to complete the challenge. Stars were tracked at both the individual and team levels, as the top three star-earning teams at the end of the week received Visa gift cards as incentive prizes. Additionally, for each star an individual earned, their name was entered into a draw for an Oura Ring when the challenge was complete.

“I better shape up if I'm gonna prove...You better prove...” 

Before Virtual Vitality began, participants were asked if they would like to share their thoughts as part of a research study. Those who participated in the research study filled out one survey questionnaire before the challenge began, and another after the challenge wrapped up. Tara and her team, including a professor of mathematics and statistics from Mohawk College, analyzed the data to determine what results the program had achieved. 

While no statistically significant improvements were found in specific wellness domains, the study was so short that the opportunity to see change was minimal; however, it is anticipated that change would be more evident if this program was run for a longer period of time, or run more frequently (e.g., once per quarter). The surveys did show a small overall trend of improvement in the wellness domains, which was overwhelmingly complimented by the vast amount of positive verbal feedback received from participants and administrators alike.  

Additionally, when the results were sorted to show only the high participation group cohort (groups who had achieved at least half of the maximum available stars), the results were clearer. These groups showed increased scores for group cohesion – attraction to group task, indicating that these groups showed enhanced feelings about the similarity, closeness and bonding within the team as a whole around the group’s task.  Individuals in these groups also strongly agreed that the challenge was a good opportunity for them to improve in a variety of health domains that were important to them. Finally, this subsection of participants from high participation groups showed a reduction in feelings of isolation at the end of the challenge, suggesting that the challenge helped them to form and sustain social connections within their workplace. 

“The one I need…Oh, yes, indeed” 

So, what do you need? Could it be your own version of a Virtual Vitality online wellness initiative? This type of initiative is great for workplaces that: 

• Prioritize a holistic view of wellness
• Want to facilitate social connections between employees
• Have employees working from home, in a hybrid model, or at multiple locations
• Have employees working a variety of hours during the day

A virtual workplace wellness initiative can help employees to get to know each other and work together, regardless of where and when they work. The industry partner also found that the Virtual Vitality challenge helped them to identify star employees that worked well as team members and group facilitators. While participants were motivated to participate by prizes and incentives (which are encouraged, if possible!), some participants got into such a habit of prioritizing their wellness through the challenge that they were still trying to log in when it was over! 

“You're the one that I want!” 

Here are a few things to consider when planning a virtual workplace online wellness initiative/challenge: 

• Get buy in from management. We started with the Health and Safety division and presented them with a clear timeline and plan, including what would be required of them (in our case, it was access to all work site employees via email).
• Groups of four to five people work best – too few and it can feel intense, too many and some team members may slack off.
• Random team assignments can be great to mix things up, but self-selected teams may be more cohesive because employees can team up with friends.
• Incentives are motivating! We used prizes (Visa gift cards) for the highest earning teams, as well as a draw prize (Oura Ring) for the highest earning individual – this ensured that there was still motivation to complete activities even if a person’s team was not regularly active in the challenge. Examples of prizes include gift cards, fitness tracking devices, team swag, etc.
• Mix up the dimensions of wellness that are addressed each day – we focused on physical, intellectual, emotional, personal development, cultural/social, and spiritual. Of six to seven challenges per day, we always had three physical and one intellectual, and then mixed up the others throughout the week.
• Respect each other’s time – shorter activities (e.g., under five minutes) will be easier for individuals to complete in the moment and sustain long term.  

If workplace wellness is something that you are considering, “meditate in [our] direction” and consider a Virtual Vitality intervention!