Employee wellness is front and center nowadays, and rightfully so. Folks need a breather from their regular 9-to-5 grind. While this break may manifest in various ways, corporate gym membership programs offer a proactive solution to helping employees maintain their health. This benefit translates positively into their personal and professional lives.
So, let’s get into the nature of corporate gym membership programs and how they can supercharge your workforce and organization.
What Is a Corporate Gym Membership Program?
An employee or corporate gym program provides team members with free or discounted gym memberships. This type of program supports employees in their health and fitness journey. The results? Happier and healthier workforce members who feel empowered to put their best foot forward.
What Are the Benefits of Offering an Employee Gym Program?
You don’t want your employees just to survive in the workplace—you want them to thrive. Gym memberships allow team members to invest in their health and well-being.
You can categorize health and well-being into three areas.
1. Physical Health Benefits
There are plenty of benefits to exercising regularly:
- Improved cardiorespiratory fitness. Running, swimming, and walking promote better heart health, cholesterol levels, digestion, and joint health.
- Chronic conditions prevention. According to the CDC, regular physical activity can reduce your risk of chronic conditions. We’re talking about heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain kinds of cancer.
- Injury prevention. Research notes that resistance training supports growth and strengthens ligaments, tendons, joint cartilage, and connective tissues. It also helps maintain muscle balance, which is helpful for everyday activities and injury prevention.
Being more physically active boosts energy and helps you stay alert and focused, helping employees perform at their best throughout the workday.
2. Mental Health Benefits
Exercise impacts the body but also carries powerful mental health benefits.
Studies link physical activity to improved memory and thinking. It also helps achieve better emotional balance, which is vital to successfully navigating ever-changing workplace circumstances.
Moreover, stress is inevitable in the workplace. Physical activity is an excellent way to release that edge, improve mood, get quality sleep, and maintain work functions.
3. Employee Morale Engagement
Employees who struggle to exercise daily are 96% more likely to experience lower productivity. Physical activity helps employees feel more confident physically and mentally. That translates to a better work ethic.
When employees feel their best at work, it enhances their:
- Overall job satisfaction
- Ability to contribute to their team and company objectives
- Motivation to contribute to and grow a positive work culture
Financial Considerations
Looking into corporate gym membership benefits requires analyzing a few financial considerations.
Cost Analysis
While gym memberships aren’t cheap, when compared to healthcare costs, they’re a relatively small investment. For example, the average monthly gym membership costs between $40 and $70 a month. The average price of a visit to the emergency room is anywhere from $1,200 to $1,300. Plus, consider how healthier employees may help lower the costs of providing employer medical insurance benefits!
Gym memberships can also pay off when it comes to workers’ compensation. Exercise lowers the risk of injuries, potentially saving a lot more money than the cost of a gym membership.
For example:
- The average cost of a workplace claim in 2020–2021 was $41,757.
- Indirect costs associated with a workplace injury might include OSHA fines, recovery of lost production/productivity, and administration time spent investigating the injury event. Research shows for every $1 spent on direct costs, $2.12 is spent on indirect costs on average.
Simply put, when you consider the preventative benefits an exercise regime provides in the long run, a gym program can help both employers and employees save. Investing in employee fitness and health can help mitigate the risk of future medical conditions and emergencies.
Budget
Creating an effective gym budget merits:
- Analyzing your company’s current financial situation. How much is a feasible budget for gym programs?
- Estimating monthly operating costs for any onsite fitness facilities. Is an onsite facility an option?
- Assessing employee needs. How many employees would be interested, and what are their fitness preferences?
- Monitoring and adjusting. You must assess the program’s effectiveness over time to adjust the budget, optimize benefits, and control costs.
Potential ROI
While the potential ROI of corporate gym membership programs will vary depending on your organization’s size, level of employee participation, and other factors, some ROI considerations may include:
- Improved employee retention. Companies with wellness programs enjoy a 25% decline in employee turnover compared to those without.
- Increased productivity. Exercise elevates endorphins, creating happier team members. Happy employees are 13% more productive at work.
- Decrease in absenteeism. Studies note that participants in a workplace wellness program that includes physical activity have lower rates of absenteeism than their counterparts.
4 Values to Drive a Successful Gym Program
Assessing how your corporate gym membership will work requires considering your workforce’s preferences.
You’ll find that each person’s go-to workout and gym environment differs. The key to driving a successful corporate gym program is placing inclusivity, participation, accessibility, and convenience at the program’s forefront.
- Inclusivity. Cater to different fitness levels and interests. Encourage employees to provide feedback to assess their fitness goals and the workout environment they feel comfortable and confident in.
- Participation. How can you encourage and motivate team members to take full advantage of the gym program? Consider offering a personal training session when they reach a certain number of steps per quarter.
- Convenience. Do employees prefer to work out at home or another location? Knowing this can help assess their options. If team members work in the office, consider offering onsite gym facilities for convenience.
- Accessibility. Where are your employees located? Ensure remote team members have options, too. Whether they participate in online workout classes or drive to a local studio, you want to ensure your gym program includes selections for everyone, regardless of their location.
How to Implement Employee/Corporate Gym Memberships
Most employee gym membership programs offer team members a monthly or annual stipend. Employees can use this stipend toward workout classes of their choice. Providing these wellness stipends is a fantastic and simple way to carry out a program without sacrificing preferences. Employees have free reign on where and when they want to work out.
If you’re interested in offering more options as part of your gym program, here are a few tips worth pursuing:
- Partner with fitness facilities. Conduct outreach to local gyms and negotiate discounts or corporate rates with the facilities. These partnerships may open up flexible membership options that become long-term relationships.
- Provide onsite fitness facilities. Some workspace buildings already have an onsite fitness center. An onsite facility is a convenient way to offer additional opportunities to exercise. If unavailable, perhaps dedicate a room with exercise equipment.
- Implement wellness programs. In addition to gym access, create a holistic program with wellness resources or education. The program may include access to nutrition coaches or virtual therapy services.
As you collect data, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t in your gym program. Use this feedback to strengthen your program and nurture more engagement.
Gym Membership Programs in Action
We understand that establishing a gym membership program might seem daunting, but it’s worth the effort! We have some fantastic real-life examples of employers successfully implementing gym membership programs.
- One Awardco client, BPM, created a wellness participation incentive to get their people excited to exercise. That, along with their other recognition programs, has led to a 98% recognition rate.
- SaaS provider Salesforce offers employees a $100 wellness reimbursement per month. Their onsite locations also have a well-being center with group fitness classes, nutrition counseling, and more.
- Project management platform Asana provides gym memberships and daily yoga classes. The business also offers onsite nap rooms to help employees relax and recharge.
- Property company Bruntwood partnered with personal training business FORM to offer FORM-style workout classes across its workspaces.
Chris Oglesby, CEO of Bruntwood, said:
Our work and personal lives are blurring. Now we’ve learned we can work from home, professional workspaces need to offer more value. For a building to appeal to a business and its employees, it has to be more than a place where people sit and work – we need to find solutions for other parts of their lives, too, and create environments where they thrive both professionally and personally.
Embrace Employee Health and Growth with Awardco
As you explore ways to elevate employee health and company success, we encourage you to lean on Awardco for employee recognition—another critical piece for employee well-being.
Explore recognition insights to build a holistic campaign that engages and nurtures your workforce’s long-term growth.
