Spoiler alert: no 😊 But they definitely make up a good basis for it. Have a look how we do it in our organization via #Codelab4Fit programme.
It is difficult to say when the devotion for supporting sports activities in Codelab started. Since I remember, we’ve had Multisport (nothing new, everybody does). Then our social benefit fund committee decided to support individuals and groups wanting to exercise. At some point our employees asked us for funding running relay races. When it turned out we had around 30 people (around 15% of our employees at that time) wanting to give it a go in the race (plus apart from runners, there was a good deal of bikers, swimmers and other sports geeks), we decided physical activity is worth supporting.
And this is when #Codelab4Fit started. The name was chosen by the employees themselves, via a poll. We all like democracy, don’t we? 😊 The rules for the programme were very simple. We have a given budget for funding sports competition fees for our employees. The only obligation at their side is to start in our branded technical attire and send us some photos afterwards. We also encouraged to use #Codelab4Fit in social media. In addition to this, we made monthly challenges using one of commonly used training platforms. That was basically it.
Outcome?
My favourite story is when one of our employee refused to quit our company because the other didn’t have a sports programme 😊 But for all those who say: ‘don’t embarrass yourself, that is an anecdotal evidence’ – have a look at broader statistics.
In 2019 we had 56 beneficiaries of our programme. For a two-hundred-sth company of engineers that is quite a number, don’t you think? The statistics of our challenges said that within a year we burnt 3.006.147 Calories. That is more or less 390 Kg of lost body fat. We did 48.744 Km which means in a collective effort we went around the planet at the equator and even started a second turn 😊
We finished 2019 with a good deal of new ideas for our programme and then Covid-19 happened. But looking at statistics – except for the short period of lock-down phase – people exercise just like they did a year earlier, or even more. So it seems that sports works well for their well-being – otherwise they would stay home and watch Netflix 😊