Going the distance: Worksite walking programs make giant strides

Workplace walking programs sure are taking big steps forward these days. For years now, I’ve been hearing about programs from Florida to Colorado walking toward better employee health armed only with a pedometer and a dream, but it seems that recently the programs are really hitting their stride, so to speak.

Not long ago, I heard about a New England-based company challenged its employees to collectively walk the step equivalent of the distance from its Boston and Glastonbury, Conn., offices to San Francisco.

Not to be outdone, the folks at Domino’s Pizza announced this week that its employees recently complete a step challenge that took them more than one billion steps in six months. As part of its ‘A Healthier YOU’ corporate wellness initiative, Domino’s had employees use activity trackers to calculate daily steps taken and distances walked. The one billion-plus steps logged by workers and spouses across the globe equates to 500,000 miles — roughly equivalent to traveling from Earth to the moon and back.

Guess that’s a billion small steps for man, one giant leap for wellness.

While Domino’s — and likely other employers implementing workplace walking initiatives—coupled the exercise with education, the success of the program is proof-positive that wellness programs don’t need to cost millions to be effective.

“We have seen tremendous participation and success stories from all divisions of our company and have seen and heard amazing success stories from individuals who have been able to improve their overall health and in some cases identify and control behaviors that could have been fatal to their health,” says Domino’s Pizza VP of total rewards, Joe Abraham.

“We asked our team members what ‘healthy’ means to them and designed the program based on their feedback and it worked,” he continues. We are thankful for the support from senior leadership and the success this program has had on our team member’s lives.”

What do you think? Is wellness as simple as a play on the Nike slogan “Just do it”? Can telling employees to, “Just walk” work? Share your thoughts in the comments.