In addition to informal office weight loss contests among coworkers, official company-sponsored contests add fun and value to wellness programs. With a little planning and help from your human resources department, you can help institute a one-time or annual weight loss contest that raises the company's bottom line, while reducing yours.
Legal Considerations
Before you create an office weight loss contest, check with your legal department to determine how to mitigate liability. For example, setting specific exercise or weight loss goals might be unhealthy, and workers who suffer health problems in your contest might have legal claims as a result. If you publish workers' weights, or even weight loss numbers, you may also run into defamation issues. Have your legal department work with your health insurance provider to create a liability waiver and provide healthy weight loss materials.
Parameters
Those who are the most overweight will have the biggest opportunity to lose a total number of pounds, so setting your contest goals based on total pounds lost may be unfair. Consider setting goals as a percentage of body weight to make the contest fairer. Or, to educate employees about the importance of knowing their body mass index, you may want to base the contest on change in BMI. Set specific start and end dates with weigh-ins at each, or weekly weigh-ins.
Motivation
The better the odds for winning a contest, the more likely your coworkers will enter and continue to participate. Consider offering more prizes, rather than putting all of the money into one or two prizes. For example, create awards for male and females, or based on office location in a multi-location company or for any employee who hits a goal, such as the number of verifiable hours exercised during the contest period. Create teams of employees, giving the winning team a prize, in addition to individual prizes; employees who may want to give up on personal goals may keep working so they don't let their teammates down. Provide support to workers through guest lecturers and materials on diet, nutrition, exercise and fitness.
Prizes
Avoid specific prizes that may not appeal to all your employees. For example, younger employees might like electronic gifts better than older workers, who might prefer dining certificates. Consider gift cards, which let workers choose their own prizes. Create teams, pitting office against office, men against women, management against staff or department against department. Or put members of different groups together to increase corporate morale. Give the winning team a day off or take them to a post-contest celebratory lunch. Consider having teams work for a charity. The Wii Not Fit program, created by the San Bernardino Community College District, allowed teams to donate prizes to a campus cause they chose.
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