6 Reasons Your Company Needs a Fitness Program How do you keep the team spirit high while trying to manage stress levels and prevent a big dip in productivity? Corporate fitness.
By Victoria Repa Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As nearly every company had to instantly switch to working remotely over the past year, the cases of undue stress, low motivation, loss of focus, and miscommunication among employees have risen dramatically.
I can imagine how HR managers worldwide found themselves struggling over the same problem — how do you keep the team spirit high while trying to manage stress levels and prevent a big dip in productivity? In my company, the answer was clear right from the start — corporate fitness.
Fitness at BetterMe has always been a critical team-building tool. In our daily work, we don't just promote leading a healthy lifestyle and maintaining inner peace — everything we put out into the world we embody ourselves, first and foremost.
Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Workplace Focused on Mental Wellness
Before the pandemic, we had regular fitness classes at the office: yoga, stretching, boxing, meditation, etc. Even our regular team-building outings tended to happen at a fitness class rather than a bar. Group fitness makes for really great social events: endorphins lead to relaxation and there's no need for alcohol.
Here are six reasons why we found corporate fitness to be the most effective solution for bringing your company culture to a new level.
1. Boosting the immune system
Every year companies in the U.S. lose about 530 billion dollars due to sick days and employee health issues. For the same reason, the global GDP underperforms by 15% annually — nearly double the GDP damage from COVID-19.
Employees who are physically active, however, take nine times fewer sick days and are, on average, 18 percent more productive. For every dollar invested into corporate fitness, companies can often generate two to four dollars in additional revenue. Not only is employee health especially important during the pandemic, working out helps everyone feel healthier and have a more positive outlook on life.
2. Improving mental health
Studies have shown over and over again that physical activity benefits our mental health. In turn, feeling better and more confident helps us to be much more productive. People with a healthy level of self-confidence, regardless of gender, tend to make fewer mistakes and adapt better to new situations.
In addition, employees who stay physically active generate and execute more ideas, and are more resilient to failure, since they are more confident in their ability to bounce back and try again.
Related: 8 Ways to Build a Self-Care Routine You Can Feel Good About
3. Reducing stress
Companies in the U.K. waste about 12 million workdays and 45 billion pounds every year due to stress and burnout. It's not to say that hours worked and tasks completed aren't important, but solely focusing on those could lead to significantly decreased morale. That's why it's becoming increasingly more important to learn how to properly manage energy rather than time.
Investing in mental health through corporate fitness helps employees regain said energy and recuperate resources needed to take on new projects.
4. Diversifying routines
Everyone who stayed in lockdown for the better part of last year and was completely immersed in work during that time can attest to how unhealthy it was for our mental health. In just three months of the pandemic, burnouts in the U.S. have skyrocketed from 45 to 58 percent, and employees have reported mental health concerns three times as often.
Besides being able to clear the mind and reduce stress, fitness also brings variety into everyday life. When you feel overwhelmed by your daily routine, taking a break for a quick high-intensity workout serves as a healthy distraction. The BetterMe app, for example, has over 1,500 different workouts, so you never feel like you're repeatedly doing the same thing.
5. Stimulating creativity
According to the latest studies in neurobiology, regular workouts actually increase the size of the hippocampus in the brain, which improves memory, boosts creativity and helps generate new ideas.
Continuously pursuing new physical challenges also inspires us to achieve more ambitious goals over time, which in turn requires more creative solutions.
6. Promoting team bonding
Fostering strong connections between all the people on your team is critical to your culture. Having similar values or interests to "glue" people together certainly helps, and sport or fitness can be one of those uniting common themes.
One of the ways in which you can integrate fitness into your workplace is creating various company-wide challenges. In 2020, when it was clear that the pandemic would last for quite a while, a few companies reached out to BetterMe asking to create custom corporate fitness programs for them.
BetterMe specializes in developing custom fitness programs, which include daily workouts, group classes, progress trackers, professional support, a chat for all the participants, and score tables to ignite a competitive spirit.
Fitness challenges work remotely just as well. In fact, they are a great way to support your employees as they offer a platform for team building, improving morale, and maintaining social relationships beyond regular work projects. In some way, corporate workouts are close to a sport or a game, which supports mental health and reduces stress and burnout.
At the moment, the BetterMe app supports over 10 languages, so that any international team across any number of countries and time zones can get on the same fitness program for a friendly social competition against their coworkers.
