You can create groups/teams within your organization to add fun and increase participation!

Already made groups/teams for past events?

If you already had “groups/teams” for previous events, the last groups you had are still in the system! If you would like to make any changes, provide the updated group names to contact@healthcode.org in an Excel sheet as soon as possible.

HOT TIPS for returning organizations:

Your organization’s returning HealthCode activity event participants do sign up for No Barriers; however, all their information is still in the system, including if they had selected your organization and a “group/team”.

If changes were made to your organization’s prior “group/team” names for this event, then let your employees know to select their new “group/team”. This can be done at registration by confirming their organization and selecting their new “group/team”.

NOTE: Participants can also make changes to their organization and group from their personal profile page by clicking on “Edit Profile” near the top left of the column.

A new organization or wanting to include groups/teams?

If you’d like to include “groups/teams” for your organization, then follow the steps below! Groups/teams are commonly a list of office locations, departments, schools, other employee groupings, or fun group names!

          Steps to set up your “groups/teams”

1. 1. Provide a list of your “group/team” names in one column on an Excel sheet. This will be loaded in as-is; please spell check and make sure the list is accurate in every way
   2. Email your group/team list to contact@healthcode.org

NOTE: Send a list of the group/team names, NOT employee names as they sign up individually and then select your organization and their “group/team”

Obtain Senior Leadership Support

Having involvement and support from your senior leadership (CEO, local office management) is a key success factor! Have senior leaders record brief videos and/or send emails to encourage registration and participation throughout the challenge

Engage Your Wellness Activation Team

If you don’t already have a formal wellness team at your company, recruit employee volunteers to join a “Wellness Activation Team”. This team will implement the challenge, get people moving, and get people excited throughout the event.

• Designate a main point personal for communicating with the No Barriers team. This will often be the person who set up the company, but if different, please email that name to us.
• Designate a point person for each satellite office or department. This person will be in charge of communications, translations, incentives, and inner-office promotions for their local office or department.

Plan Promotions

Promote the event to your team by utilizing the No Barriers marketing communication tools provided such as sample banners, logos, etc. We also provide email templates and social media samples that you can customize for our company.

Send a “How to Register” email. Feel free to use the provided templates, adjusting steps 5 and 6 before sending, per the below:

• On Step 5: Fill in your company name where it says “Choose ____ as your organization”
• On Step 6: If your company provided HealthCode with your groups/teams, leave as-is. If you chose not to have groups/teams for your company, change this line to read “Skip the Select Your Group/Team pulldown”

For all emails, make edits/additions as needed, such as:

• Your company goals (mile goal as a company and number or percentage of employees participating)
• Per office goals (a great way to unite the local office in a goal)
• Per employee goals

Set up registration promotions at the office in common areas, such as lobby and break areas!

Leverage No Barriers “Race Bib,” which participants access at registration. Have fun! Include the race bibs in your team-building activities as employees post photos on social media, along with your organization’s hashtags. You can access an image of the “Race Bib” in the sample creative materials.

Establish Incentives

Internal company incentives are important to boost your company’s registration and participation.

Examples could include PTO, vacation time for meeting a goal, gift cards and prizes, and recognition through company communication channels.

Set Goals

• Set a registration goal → X number or X percentage of employees registered by DATE
• Set a company wide first day mile goal (DATE)
• Set a company wide mile goal for the entire month

TIP: What is your organization’s objective?

If it is to get the most people up and moving, set a mileage goal that almost all can reach.

Some organizations have used a mile a day, some even less. It’s not about the most miles, it is about helping people along their journey to a happier and healthier life. In the process, it builds your organization’s culture.

BEFORE OCTOBER

Send the “How To Register” email to your employees at least once during this period. In the email templates, you will find the “How To Register” email. This will tell your employees exactly how to register on the website for the event. Just cut, paste, customize, and send.

NOTE: Make sure to customize steps 5 and 6 in the email template before sending

• In these emails, state the goals for your organization – specifically registration goals (number/percentage of employees your company is wanting to have register
• TIP: include a video from your senior leadership in these emails encouraging all employees to register by X date to meet the registration goal. Another option is to have the email be sent from the senior leader to all employees.

MID TO LATE SEPTEMBER

Send an email to employees saying:

• September 30th is the last day to register before the event starts.
• NOTE: employees can still register through October 31st, but encouraging them to be registered before September 30th is the best plan for a solid event – people work better with deadlines.
• In these emails, be sure to state any special company plans, occurring on September 30th to kickoff the challenge
• State your first day or week goals and/or hold a special event (walking first mile together as a company, kickoff ceremony led by CEO, etc.)

OCTOBER

Send an email to employees to get them excited that No Barriers is underway, and they can include their activity as of October 1st. Reiterate your company’s first day, week, and month goals. Provide a calendar of any events your company is hosting or sponsoring (walking groups, company boot camps, etc.)

• Post/display any marketing assets: Put up posters, table cards, etc. around the office in common areas and high traffic areas (breakroom, dining area, elevator, meeting rooms, front desk, etc.)
• Registration incentives: provide an incentive to register
• Example: a drawing each week from those who have registered, to win X prize from your organization

TIP: Want to see who has registered from your organization?

1. Log on to your HealthCode activity dashboard, click on the “Your Organization’s Leaderboard” box in the No Barriers event
2. Click on the “EXPORT TO SHEETS” link on the top
3. Download the Excel sheet, which will show employees’ names as they register
4. Starting October 1st, as people enter their activity data, their data will show up on your organization’s private leaderboard, on the public board, and on their private profile page.

Activation Team Promotions: Have wellness champions actively engage people in registration within common areas (lunch/break rooms, office meetings/status, etc.)

Kickoff!

Implement first day kickoff plans. We highly recommend a first day ceremony.

Examples:

• Dedicated time to walk together at each office to complete the 1st mile
• CEO addresses employees through office video communications and/or email with video
• Communicate any first day and month goals for your company

Company Leaderboard Page

This is a big motivator for individual employees and the company as a whole. Be sure to communicate and promote that each employee visit this page to check how they and their group/team are doing.

How to access the company leaderboard:

1. After logging into the HealthCode dashboard, find the No Barriers event
2. Find the “(Organization Name) Leaderboard”
3. Click on the company name and it will take you to the company leaderboard page. There you can see a leaderboard of individuals from your company and the overall stats for all employees combined. 
4. On-demand reports: Wellness leaders can pull an on-demand report of employee participation by clicking on the “EXPORT TO SHEETS” link on this page

Implement Events Throughout the Month

Here are some examples of what your company can do!

• Walking Wednesdays: set a time and place for employees to meet each Wednesday morning, at lunch or after work to walk together
• Informal Bootcamps or Yoga classes
• Take the Stairs Days
• Encourage walking meetings

Mile Logging Reminder Emails

Send an email to all participants reminding them to log miles from the weekend. We see a big bump in miles being logged each Monday when we send reminders!

We suggest that you send an email to all employees every Thursday or Friday during October and on October 31st to remind them to log their miles. This is especially important for those who do not connect a tracking device/app to their profile for automatic logging.

Incentives

Provide incentives as you reach milestones on the way to your company goal. For example, if your company goal is to achieve X% of employee participation, give away incentives as the employees each reach their goal.

To prevent it from being about who does the most miles (which can be discouraging to folks who are new to activity) and prevents gaming the system (as there is no advantage for having more miles), make sure to draw the winner randomly.

Update Social Media

Be sure to take photos and videos throughout the event and share through any company social channels (internal and external). This will go a long way in helping visually connect all employees across the office or world, as they see other employees having fun and being active!

Use hashtag: #eventname and your organization hashtag

Post Event Celebration

Now is the time to celebrate all that your company has accomplished during the month!

• Email: Send out a company wide email that congratulates all participants for being a part of the No Barriers challenge with your company. Be sure to include:

• All of your company stats (find these on your company leaderboard page)
• Recognize any goals met for the company
• Recognize groups/teams and individuals who went above and beyond or had great improvement throughout the month
• Special Event: Just like you did on the first day, hold a special event or gathering ceremony to close out the August event (either on the last day of the August or the first week of September.

Reports and Metrics for Your Company

On-Demand Reports

An on-demand report is available on the company leaderboard page for your event by clicking the “Download All from Organization” link. This report will show you first name, last name, office location or group, and logged miles for each person (it will not show any contact or personal information).

Suggested Stats to Share with Employees and Senior Leaders

• Company stats (miles, calories, minutes): these can be found on the company leaderboard page for each group. Click into the company leaderboard page, click “View Groups” link, and click on any office name (or calculate using the detailed report)
• Projected Healthcare Cost Savings: Divide the total calories burned by 3,500. Then multiply that number by 9. The resulting number is your projected healthcare cost savings.*

Year Ahead

Check out HealthCode’s monthly activity events to engage your employees, families, and community throughout the year.

Special Ask: Please pass along HealthCode’s programs with your HR/wellness network. Just share this link to the Organization page.

THANK YOU for your participation in making lives happier and healthier! See you next month!

Password Reset Info

For personal privacy reasons HealthCode CAN NOT access or see passwords. Common reasons for password reset issues:

• Password email going to spam
• Email used was work vs home or vice versa, so try both (sometimes even misspelled such as “coom” vs “com”  (true)
• Organization’s email/web filters – so please ask your tech team to include as approved the following emails and web sites: contact@healthcode.org and contact@millionmilemonth.org; https://events.healthcode.org, www.MillionMileMonth.org and www.HealthCode.org.

Privacy Note: Personal information provided at registration is NOT shared with partners or other organizations. Registration and activity data is aggregated to improve HealthCode’s programs, obtain partners and funding support.

Fitbit TIP 

Over 95% of Fitbit issues have been solved when:

• Assuring device is fully charged – as the activity data goes from their device to their Fitbit website and from the Fitbit website to HealthCode’s activity event platform
• Disconnect their Fitbit connection from their Personal Profile page on our site, clear their browser cache and reconnect

NOTE: Participants using other trackers can sync up by first connecting their device to Strava or MapMyFitness and then to their HealthCode Personal Profile page

A Special HealthCode Request: 

Please pass along HealthCode’s programs with your HR/wellness network. Just share this to link the Organization page: https://healthcode.org/organizations/

THANK YOU!