Below is an article originally written by Jo Bennett. Go to Pitney Bowes's company page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
New Year’s resolutions – many of us start off the year with the best intentions, but they don’t always stick. Some common challenges are feeling a lack of time or motivation. Throughout the year, the Pitney Bowes Wellness team organizes challenges designed to reinforce, and in some cases, introduce healthy living practices. This year it started with a program called “Nourish Challenge.” Elysa Jacobs Cruse,Senior Manager, Wellbeing Programs, explains how challenges like this help make overall wellness accessible for all employees.
Explain Nourish, and why we kicked off 2024 with this challenge.
The Nourish Challenge was a great way to start the year, with quick, manageable actions focused on mental and physical wellbeing. Rather than lofty, hard-to achieve goals, the program featured two weeks of daily activities focused on one of the following:
- Connection
- Movement
- Stress and Sleep
- Nutrition
- Mindfulness
| Daily actions varied from strategies on eating more vegetables, to taking mindful minutes in breathing or meditation exercises, to reducing excessive cell phone use and improving sleep habits. The program was a way to bring attention to simple actions that can have a dramatic positive impact on wellbeing and can easily fit into anyone’s busy schedule. (Left: Elysa Jacobs Cruse) |
What are some challenges that employees can look forward to in 2024?
We are really excited for our 18th annual One-in-a-Million Step Challenge, a one-day Pitney Bowes tradition that every site and the majority of employees who work in virtual locations participate in each May during Global Employee Health and Fitness Month. We will host a Financial Wellbeing Challenge in the Spring, and in the Summer, a new Food around the World fitness challenge that will bring together movement, nutrition and culture.
How do these fit into the Pitney Bowes Wellness program & mission?
Pitney Bowes takes great pride in our commitment to the health of our employees and their families. A culture of wellbeing has long been an important part of our values. One of the ways we demonstrate this commitment is by providing comprehensive wellbeing and benefit programs to our employees. These programs are just a part of our overall offerings, which also include individualized offerings like Nutrition, fitness, mental health and financial support coaching.
Employees can also challenge colleagues across the business to see who can get in the most steps in a day or a week. Talk about that.
While the programs we offer serve the purposes of creating a community and engaging employees and are fun, motivating ways to help them take positive action in their health, employees can also take action toward their personal goals on our online wellbeing platform (Virgin Pulse) at any time. They can create their own personal fitness challenge or healthy habit challenge (where actions to commit to can be selected from a wide range of physical, mental and financial wellbeing actions), and they can also invite colleagues to join them so they don’t need to wait or be limited to only company-organized events.
What feedback have employees provided on these challenges?
Some examples include, “I love that you do these challenges and support healthy habits,” “I doubled the amount of my normal steps during the challenge. Thank you for the motivation!” and “Thank you for this opportunity-It brought so much attention to health actions I should focus on but wasn’t.”
It’s great seeing the enthusiasm, camaraderie, awareness and empowerment that these challenges spark.
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