Implementation Guide

Registration: February 15 to March 31

Event: March 1- 31

Registration at: https://events.healthcode.org

Resources

Email Templates – How to Register, Reminder to Log miles, etc.: Click here

Social Media Samples: Click here

Marketing Assets – Posters, Logos, website banners, etc.: Click Here

Below is a step-by-step guide for implementing Spring Into Action™. Remember participants can start at any time during March and enter activity accomplished AS OF March 1st. So there is no penalty for a late start. Contact us at any time with questions: contact@HealthCode.org

Spring Into Action™ is provided by the 501-c3 nonprofit HealthCode™, whose vision is that everyone should enjoy the benefits of a healthier happier life.

Like PBS or NPR HealthCode’s programs are provided at no charge. Optional registration donations are tax deductible, which along with sponsorships, donations and grants allow HealthCode’s programs to be provided at no charge to kids, schools and low income communities. Interested in how your organization can help? We’d love to hear from you Contact@HealthCode.org

1. Status of Your Organization

Are you NEW to HealthCode’s activity events and have not signed up?

Sign Your Organization Up There is no charge to sign up as an organization or for participants.

If new, fill out the form HERE. https://healthcode.org/organizations

Are you RETURNING HealthCode event participant or a recent registrant?

Then you are set for Love Your Health as your Organization and “teams/groups” are already in the system.

2. Setting Up Your Groups/Teams

An optional feature that adds a lot of fun and increases participation.

If a returning organization and you had “groups”, then the last groups you had are still in the system. If you would like to change the “groups” then provide the group names in one column in an excel doc as soon as possible.

If you’d like to include “groups/teams” for your organization, then send us your teams/groups. Groups/teams are commonly a list of office locations, departments, schools, or other employee groupings.

Steps to set up your “groups/teams”:

Provide a list of “group/team” names one column in an Excel sheet. This list will be loaded in as-is; please spell-check and make sure the list is accurate in every way.

Email your group/team list to contact@healthcode.org

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

Hot Tip for Returning Organizations: Your organization’s returning HealthCode activity event participants do sign up for Spring Into Action, however all their info is still in the system, including if they had selected your organization and a “group/team”.

IF your organization’s prior “Group/Teams” names have been edited for this event, then let your employees know to select their new “group”. This is done at registration by confirming their Organization and then selecting their “Group”. See the 3rd sample email template.

NOTE: Participants can also make changes to their Organization and Group from their Personal Profile page by clicking on “Edit Profile” near the top of the left column.

3. Suggestions to Maximize Participation and Results

Obtain Senior Leadership Support

Involvement and support from Senior Leadership (CEO, local office management) is a key success factor. Involvement ideas:

Have Senior Leaders record brief videos to encourage registration and participation
Have Senior Leaders send emails to employees encouraging 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 help you implement the challenge, get people moving and keep people excited through the event.
Designate a main point person for communicating with the Spring Into Action™ 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, inner-office promotions for their local office or department.

Plan Promotions

Review the Spring Into Action™ marketing communication tools such as SAMPLE BANNERS and logos, etc.
Review the Spring Into Action™ EMAIL TEMPLATES and SOCIAL MEDIA samples; customize for your company:
“How to Register” email (adjust steps 3 and 4 before sending, per the below):
On Step 3: Fill in your company name where it says COMPANY NAME
On Step 4: 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”
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
Setup registration promotions at the office in common areas, such as lobby and break areas.

Leverage Spring Into Action’s “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:

PTO or Vacation hours/days for meeting a goal
Gift Cards and Prizes
Recognition through company communication channels

Set Goals

Set a registration goal: X number or X percent of employees registered by March 1.
Set a company wide first day mile goal (March 1)
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; then 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 healthier life. In the process, building your organization’s culture.

4. During Registration Phase (Up to and during March)

Emails during Registration Phase (You will find the Email Templates HERE)

Before March

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 3 and 4 in this email before sending).

Send the “Registration Reminder” email:

TIP: 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 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 and Late February

Send email to employees saying:

February 28 is the last day to register before the event starts (Note: employees can still register through March 1, but encouraging them to be registered before March 1 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 March 1 to kickoff the challenge:

state your first day or week goals
hold a special event (walking first mile together as a company, kickoff ceremony led by CEO, etc.)

March 1:

Send an email to employees to get them excited that Spring Into Action™ is underway and they can include their activity as of March 1st. Reiterate your company’s first day, week and month goals. Provide a calendar of any events your company is putting on 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 (break room, dining area, elevator, meeting rooms, front desk, etc.).

Registration Incentives: Provide an incentive to register (for 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? Log on to your personal profile page, click on “Your organization’s Leaderboard” link on the left column under Spring Into Action logo. Then click on the “Download all from this organization” link on the right side. Download the excel doc, which will show employees’ names as they register. Starting February 1 as people enter their activity data, their data will show up 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.)

5. During March

Kickoff at your office (on March 1st)

Implement first day kickoff plans. We highly recommend a first day ceremony. Examples:
Dedicated time to walk together at each office to complete 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 often to check how they and their group/team are doing. See 2b below for how to access this page.

Instructions on how to access Company Leaderboard for your organization:

In your profile, locate the Spring Into Action™ logo in your Event Stats column.
Under that logo you will see the word ORGANIZATION with your company name in blue
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.
Click on the “View Groups” link on this page to see a leaderboard of the office locations
Click on the name of any group/team to see the individual leaderboard for that group.
On-Demand Reports: Wellness leaders can pull an on-demand report of employee participation by clicking on the “Download All From Organization” link on this page

Implement events throughout the month

Examples include:

Walking Wednesdays (set a time and place for employees to meet each Wed 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 March and on March 31 to remind them to log their miles (especially important for those who do not connect a Fitbit, Strava or Map My Fitness account 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 reach each their goal. Be sure to draw the winner randomly from those who are participating. This prevents 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 to having more miles than others when it comes to incentives).

Social

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 the world, as they see other employees having fun and being active!

Use hashtag: #SpringIntoActionIAM AND the hashtag for your organization

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 https://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 web site 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

6. After March

Post Event Celebration

Now is the time to celebrate all that your company had accomplished during the month. We recommend:

Email

Send out a company wide email that congratulates all participants for being a part of the Spring Into Action™ 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 across the month.

Special Event

Just like you did on the first day, hold a special event or gathering ceremony to close out the March event (either on the last day of March or the first week of April).

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 – see below for Detailed Reports)

Suggested Stats to Share with employees and senior leaders

Company stats (miles, calories, minutes): These can be found on the Company Leaderboard page or calculated using the detailed reports.
Per group/team stats (miles, calories, minutes): Found on the group 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 Health Care Cost Savings: Divide the total calories burned by 3500. Then multiply that number by 9. The resulting number is your projected health care cost savings.*

Year ahead: Check out HealthCode’s monthly activity events to engage your employees, families and community throughout the year: January iResolve.™, February Love Your Health, March Spring into Action, April Million Mile Month™, May Million Mile Month Reboot, June Triathlon in a Month in Training, July Triathlon in a Month™, August Dog Days of Summer, September Fall Into Action, October Marathon in a Month™, November Turkey Trek, and December Give the Gift of Health.

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

Noteworthy February Dates:

March 1: Spring Into Action ™ First Day

March 17: St. Patrick’s Day

March 31: Spring Into Action Final Day

Integrate the walk/run/bike events in your community supporting chronic health issues.

See this site for fun ideas throughout the month. http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/january.htm

*This formula is based on 2009 Mayo Clinic research and is endorsed by United Healthcare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Explanation: Body fat reduction through the use of caloric expenditure occurs at the known rate of 1 lb body fat per 3500 calories burned/used. Healthcare costs due to weight gain have been calculated at $28 per pound over a three year period, or approximately $9 per pound annually.” So, to get the Projected/Estimated Healthcare Savings we take the total calories burned and divide by 3500 (caloric expenditure to burn 1lb of body fat), and then multiply by $9 (the savings per year per 1lb).This figure is directional and meant to provide an additional guide for how an organization is benefiting from participation, outside of the miles, calories and minute metrics.