Work Fitbit Challenge

Helping employees stay healthier is a topic that is on a lot of employer's minds these days: health care costs continue to rise and healthy employees are also more productive. The company where I currently work has come up with a fun, proactive approach to improving employee health that is also having benefits in terms of inspiring social interaction between employees.

This all started about a month ago when our CEO sent out mail announcing a fitness challenge using Fitbit pedometers to track exercise, with gift certificates to be awarded based on maintaining various step counts, using the 10,000 step recommended range (link link) as a goal. The terms of the challenge are quite clever, awarding various levels of prizes for any substantial, consistent exercise. In addition, interested employees were given a fitbit pedometer, a purchase that indicates substantial employer interest in investing in employee health.

This is what the pedometer looks like after a morning walk around town. The fitbit syncs with various phones directly. Data can also be uploaded through your computer by plugging in a USB dongle and downloading software from fitbit,com.

While I've had a long term fitness habit in place via 10 years of membership at the YMCA and riding a bicycle on the Centennial Trail, I've actually seen some health benefits after 3 weeks of using this device, since I'm now doing more consistent walking on top of the more intensive cardio activity I'm used to. This makes sense, since my job as a medical programmer is a relatively sedentary activity.

Walking has also given me opportunities to get out and see some cool stuff, so I decided today to start adding blog entries including pictures of cool stuff that I've seen along the way...