Overview
June is Employee Wellbeing Month, so we’ve been working away to make sure there are plenty of options for everyone at Walter P Moore to stay well!
As a firm, we have an overall Designed Wellness Program (see below), but we know that sometimes progress happens best when carried out at a more personal, local scale. So we dug a bit deeper to see what each of our offices practiced to promote wellbeing at a local level. Some measures are a bit unconventional, no doubt, but have sparked some creative ideas for either adding to or revising some of the individual office wellness practices.
So in honor of Employee Wellbeing Month, we thought we’d share some of these wellness initiatives — the wild and wacky not withstanding — that our various offices practice around the globe.
Push-Up Pauses / Washington, D.C.
Every hour, on the hour, everyone in the office takes a break for push-ups. Benefits: regular mental and physical breaks, strength-building, team-building, and many say it actually helps ideas to flow.
Current push-up count: 13,000
Kale Fridays / San Francisco
We’re not really sure if this is legit or just an urban legend, but a few years ago in response to some of the offices’ ‘Ice Cream Wednesdays’ or monthly ‘sweets’ days, our San Franciscan colleagues implemented Kale Fridays to maintain their healthier-than-most reputation. Um…whatever works.
Bi-Weekly Wellness Challenges / Kansas City
Held every 2 weeks, Kansas City just completed their first Wellness Challenge, which awards points for drinking water and walking. The collective results were impressive:
88% of the office participated in the challenge
76 gallons of water consumed (128 gallons possible if everyone maxed out on water points)
88 miles walked (170 miles possible if everyone maxed out on walking points)
3 people had perfect scores!
Fresh Fruit Mondays / Dallas
Dallas gets fresh fruit every Monday morning and monthly ‘healthy’ snacks from Snack Nation, which have both been big hits and keep the office snacking healthy and not on cookies, chips and options.
Ping Pong Power Hours / Tampa
For mental wellbeing (perhaps somewhat physical as well), our Tampa office practices impromptu ping pong matches to relieve stress, get the blood flowing, and refresh their creative idea factories.
Bike to Work and Salad Days / Austin
Has a monthly bike to work day and recently started salad days in the office. They vote on salad toppings and everyone enjoys their mostly locally grown salad in the office or in the park.
Weekly Walking Days / Houston, Los Angeles, Tulsa
All three of these offices take weekly scheduled walking trips, some daily or multiple times each week. Houston takes their walks in the downtown tunnels (to avoid heat stroke and bad hair), while Tulsa and LA walk laps around their buildings and try to take the stairs whenever possible.
Firm-Wide Wellness
The Designed Wellness Program is offered free of charge to all employees and spouses. Participation in the program is voluntary and includes access to many resources and tools, including:
Personal Health Assessment (PHA), Biometric Screening, Lifestyle Coaching, Exercise/Nutrition Planners, Competitions/Challenges, Medical Resources/Articles, Health Blog, Member Engagement Promotions, and Incentives Tracking
In addition to the regularly occurring initiatives mentioned above, almost every office participates in community fun runs (both as an office and individually), and we have countless individual marathoners, triathletes, half-marathoners and even IronMen / IronWomen.
