Have employer based fit tracker programs fallen out of favor?
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cwolfman13 wrote: »My guess is that perhaps it was viewed as judging employees, some infringement of their human rights etc
This article from 2014 outlines well the arguments against corporate FitBit tracker programs.
Those who live in countries where they are raised in a surveillance society have been conditioned to accept more monitoring by an employer. Not so much in the US.
https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/5-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-use-wearables-to-monitor-employees.html
Yeah, I was going to say that I don't think something like this would go over well where I work...people would just think it's another Big Brother type of thing.
About four years ago we implemented a "fitness contract" program for all of our employees. We get 30 minutes of additional paid leave 4 days per week to go do exercise if you sign the fitness contract. This was something I really pushed for back then as I had just lost a bunch of weight and had gotten into fitness and really felt like it would benefit the office as a whole and give incentive to move...I pushed hard for 5 days, but that was a no go.
You cannot accumulate this leave...if you don't do your 30 minutes on Monday or whatever days you signed up for, you lose it. It's great to see so many people at my office now going out for walks or hitting the nearby community center, etc. Most people do theirs before or after the lunch hour, so many people go get a full 60 minutes and then take a 30 minute lunch. It's been a very productive program and you can tell that stress levels are down and several people have lost a bunch of weight and moral is much better...
Wouldn't do me any good. I swim 4 miles before work. Takes me about 2:15.
But I can see how that might help encourage some people.0 -
I think as more employers look at the numbers they will likely find that for their purposes the trackers aren't worth it. As others stated, peope figure out quickly that it is a wrist movement tracker and find ways to cheat. That these "Cheaters" win the step challenges is disheartening to the who actually workout.
Personally, as I said, I did not sync my Garmin to MFP. I enter manually, only specific activities, 90+% of the time that means only entering swimming.
A side note. Anyone ever notice that all of the marketing for fitness trackers feature people that are already fit? Seems they don't even believe that the devices motivate people to change habits to get fit
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idk . . . it is an interesting topic, and i can't help wondering how much of the cooldown came from the employees side.
not so much the surveillance/intrusion factor, but just that i think most people already feel pretty overwhelmed and overprogrammed - and over-incentivized from the outside. the whole thing about shrinking levels of truly personal/down time is real imo. stuff that you do entirely for your own reasons, entirely privately, entirely just because you want to.
technically, i understand that it doesn't make any difference. but psychologically, i can't help thinking it does. so much of life is now doubled down, where almost nothing you do is done entirely for your own self. everything has to have some sort of parallel optimization factor built in.
i never know if 'm just unusually contrary and ornery, but y'know . . . deep in my innermost heart i just think that i'm right about this. and it's only a matter of time before a new crop of 'studies show' will come out to explain what i mean better than i can right now.1 -
My employer was doing one with Vitality for about 3 years but discontinued it. They are saying that the benefits didn't justify the cost. It wasn't changing behavior enough to improve employee health and reduce health care costs. My guess is, they were paying out rewards to employees who were taking good care of themselves anyway and the rewards weren't enough to change behavior for people who don't.1
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My employer was doing one with Vitality for about 3 years but discontinued it. They are saying that the benefits didn't justify the cost. It wasn't changing behavior enough to improve employee health and reduce health care costs. My guess is, they were paying out rewards to employees who were taking good care of themselves anyway and the rewards weren't enough to change behavior for people who don't.
that is my suspicion as well.
For me, it was the weight related sleep apnea diagnosis that motivated change. Not any employer incentive.2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »
I guess it depends how voluntary it is - if it affects the cost of your healthcare insurance via the same person, it is coercion. Just a matter of scale and perspective as to whether it gets seen as a neat discount or something darker.
Could the 30 minutes be used at the start or end of the day? That would accommodate longer workouts if it was allowed, but easier to abuse.
100,000 steps isn't even 15k a day - I'd find that very doable if I was trying so not sure that implies much cheating! Depends on the person, but I definitely don't look like a fit person so would be easy to misjudge. The bragging not so much though...2 -
Just because something isn't still "news" doesn't mean employers aren't still doing it.2
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@Rosemary7391 I don't look like I can swim 10km but I can.
However, I couldn't walk or run 15km (nearly 10 miles a day). Arthritis in my feet won't let me. Hiking is actually easier on my feet. Uneven terrain, less focused impact.
The most "steps" my Garmin logged in one day was just over 30k. That was a day in China when I did a 10km and walked around the mall.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »Just because something isn't still "news" doesn't mean employers aren't still doing it.
Usually the sellers make big announcements when a large employer adopts their product for an employee program.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »My guess is that perhaps it was viewed as judging employees, some infringement of their human rights etc
This article from 2014 outlines well the arguments against corporate FitBit tracker programs.
Those who live in countries where they are raised in a surveillance society have been conditioned to accept more monitoring by an employer. Not so much in the US.
https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/5-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-use-wearables-to-monitor-employees.html
Yeah, I was going to say that I don't think something like this would go over well where I work...people would just think it's another Big Brother type of thing.
About four years ago we implemented a "fitness contract" program for all of our employees. We get 30 minutes of additional paid leave 4 days per week to go do exercise if you sign the fitness contract. This was something I really pushed for back then as I had just lost a bunch of weight and had gotten into fitness and really felt like it would benefit the office as a whole and give incentive to move...I pushed hard for 5 days, but that was a no go.
You cannot accumulate this leave...if you don't do your 30 minutes on Monday or whatever days you signed up for, you lose it. It's great to see so many people at my office now going out for walks or hitting the nearby community center, etc. Most people do theirs before or after the lunch hour, so many people go get a full 60 minutes and then take a 30 minute lunch. It's been a very productive program and you can tell that stress levels are down and several people have lost a bunch of weight and moral is much better...
Wouldn't do me any good. I swim 4 miles before work. Takes me about 2:15.
But I can see how that might help encourage some people.
I use mine before work in the summer or after work in the winter...That means I can get a longer ride in the AM because I don't have to be to work until 8:30...0 -
The company I work for had a walking challenge where they gave everyone knock-off trackers, with rewards for the most steps per week. An inordinate amount of participants were showing six figure steps every week. Combined with many of them bragging to others that they had put the trackers on their dogs all day or found the right way to swing your arm to get a step registered and just swung their arm while watching TV all weekend, the program was scrapped.
I love my Fitbit and the affect it has had on my activity level, but considering lots of people say they aren't accurate for them, it might be hard to use them as the primary way to measure activity for all participants.
My mother in law's office had a year long contest and the people that exceeded x amount of steps won a 2 day beach trip with the top stepper getting a bigger weeklong trip to Disney. Lots of people did the putting the fitbit on their dog's collar or their kids in the evenings. Needless to say I think well over 100 people qualified for the 2 day trip so I'm sure this contest did not go the way the hoped financially and probably won't be repeated.
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