Well-U Wellness Challenges at University of Rochester: Something for Everyone
At the University of Rochester, wellness challenge prizes and recognition aren’t only reserved for high achievers. The Office of Total Rewards Well-U team builds in multiple chances for everyone to win in their twice-yearly HES wellness challenges. This standout team not only seeks feedback from participants, but then acts on it to make the experience better — and it shows. Year after year, participation and completion numbers are consistently high; no small feat with 30,000 employees spread throughout their western New York region and around the country.
In 2019, Well-U launched Spring Into Motion, their first HES well-being program. “From there, it just snowballed,” says Danielle Hall, Well-U Health & Wellness Activities Coordinator. “We now do biannual challenges — fall and spring. Walktober has turned into a fall favorite. So we’ve been doing that one year after year.” The team launches a new HES wellness challenge each spring — such as Coast to Coast, Yo Ho Ho, and Worldwide Wellness. “We’ve had increasing engagement year over year. It’s been fun to get to where we are from where we first started,” she adds.
Igniting Motivation
Recognizing the variety of well-being priorities in their population — and based on participant feedback — Well-U no longer uses leaderboards to determine winners. “We’ve totally changed our prize structure and how people win because we had some logging marathons every single week, and others coming out of knee surgery,” shares Cyndi Henwood, Health &Wellness Activities Coordinator. “We wanted to level the playing field.”
Well-U has evolved their approach to embed 5 different ways to win in each challenge, with opportunities for team and individual participants to qualify for prize drawings every week. “We base prizes solely on consistency because that’s the way to build healthy habits,” Cyndi confirms. “Even if they miss the first week of recording their activity, they can still make up for it in the second week. Everybody’s got their own priorities, and we’re trying to make sure we cover those wants and goals at different levels.” Custom drawings Well-U created within Walktober this year included:
- Weekly Walktoberite for teams and individuals — consistently logging all 7 days (Friday through Thursday)
- Weekly Wall contests for individuals — responding on the Wall to weekly questions/activities posted by the Well-U team
- Thrive Thursday challenges for teams only — each team member completing the additional activity
- Motivate Monday challenges for individuals only — performing an additional weekly activity similar to Thrive Thursdays
- Power Player prize drawings — any Walktober participant logging an activity all 31 days of October, regardless of team participation
Danielle emphasizes: “There’s a chance for everyone to win. We give out over 80 prizes throughout the entire challenge, which really motivates people. It’s anyone’s game as long as they’re being consistent.” Manager of Well-U Ryan McLean affirms: “It’s a clean slate each week.”
Winners’ Choice
Cyndi underscores how Well-U’s focus on participant input leads to meaningful rewards: “We try to think of things that people want, but won’t spend their own money on.” In a recent survey (garnering nearly 1,000 responses) employees ranked 10 possible prize offerings, which helped identify the most-desired prizes. Winning teams and individuals can choose the prize they want, while supplies last. “The first-week winners are the big, big winners,” she continues. When a team wins, every member gets to pick a prize.
Using prize tiers, winners in the weekly drawing for consistent logging are offered bigger ticket items like Yeti merchandise or an Apple watch. Motivate Monday and Thrive Thursday winners can select from lower-priced items. Well-U and University of Rochester branded apparel is also in the mix, under the last tier. “It’s all good stuff,” Ryan observes.
Targeted Promotion
Getting out the word about upcoming events and programs within organization constraints is a familiar puzzler for wellness leaders. “We’ve dug down and found any channel we could possibly use,” Cyndi remarks. The Well-U team shared strategies that have worked well at the University:
- Putting up slides on TV screens in break rooms across campus
- Using participant lists from past challenges to push out an “It’s coming!” email
- Having Ryan share program information with committees he’s on, such as a work group with 100 physicians
- Equipping, empowering, and expanding the Well-U Champion Network (see below)
- Plugging programs in the Well-U Wellness e‑newsletters
- Making Walktober an annual fall challenge, enhancing word-of-mouth recruitment
Champions Bring It to the People
For about 10 years, Well-U has deployed another force fostering wellness challenge participation: the Champion Network, a group of enthusiastic volunteers who promote programs and services within their departments at the University and its Medical Center. As the University grows, so has the number of Champions, now at 150. “We have a lot of different locations and it’s ever-growing,” notes Danielle, who manages the network. “Getting Champions at different locations to help send Well-U materials to their departments really helps us spread the word.”
“How Champions deliver information is very individualized based on who their people are, and their department,” Ryan points out. “If a department has a really strong Champion and is really rallying the troops, that’s going to be extremely effective. We had a nurse Champion who posted an intranet promotion. Whenever nurses logged in, they saw a program banner… and that’s an audience of about 6,000 employees.”
The University of Rochester’s motto is Latin for ever better — it’s a fitting way to describe Well-U’s team approach to inclusive, inspiring, and engaging wellness challenge experiences.
The team is selective about what they ask of Champion volunteers. Danielle, who oversees this group, shares a quarterly newsletter and hosts 2 virtual events a year with Champions to share what’s happening in Well-U. “Anytime we have a new challenge, the Champions are usually the first to hear about it.” In addition, Champions sometimes help pilot new programs, providing valuable feedback.
Takeaways
Make achievements and prizes accessible to all.
Reward consistent logging and other types of activity so every participant has a chance to win. “This has probably been our most successful strategy,” says Cyndi. “People who engage on the Wall discussions or contests are not necessarily the people who are logging daily. So we offer something for everyone.”
Ask for feedback and act on it.
“Participant feedback is the reason why our approach has evolved as it has,” Cyndi comments. “At the end of each challenge, we review evaluation responses — what they liked least and best. We pick our top 5 from each list and say “These were the recurring themes. How can we change this?”
Get creative about program promotion.
Danielle says that they’ve been able to attract directors and leaders of certain groups for support. “Getting senior leadership to show they’re participating would be huge for any employee wellness program or challenge.”
Communicate with other employee well-being initiatives within your organization.
“Well-U provides wellness programs and challenges as part of an employee’s benefits package, but we’re not the only well-being hub in the University,” acknowledges Ryan. “Each location and job category can have different health and wellness offerings. We try to minimize silos and at least be aware of all of these efforts and make sure they know what we’re doing.” It’s another important reason for the Well-U Champions, he points out — information gets filtered back to the team, avoiding duplicate work.
