As we have mentioned here often, an increasing number of companies that are interested in doing everything they can to improve both productivity and employee retention are focusing on employee and workplace wellness. And besides improving profitability and employee retention healthier employees also leads to lowered company healthcare costs in many cases.
Whether or not your company has an official wellness program, you can still take steps toward healthier habits during your workday. And for today’s mobile culture, apps are a natural tool for getting there.
But with over 165,000 mobile health apps on the market, how do you choose which wellness apps to use? Which apps will increase employee wellness and wellness program participation? Here's a look at some of the most effective.
Welltok
Welltok is an enterprise health management platform that will allow your employees to create custom health and wellness goals, track their fitness levels and even exercise their brains. It also has elements of a social network, allowing users to share and swap recipes, health motivations and more.
Endomondo
The average office worker sits for about 10 hours a day, which includes time in front of the computer at work and time on the couch watching TV at home. Most of us know we should be more active, but haven’t found the right way to stay motivated.
Endomondo is meant to help motivate people to move more by tracking workouts, providing audio feedback and offering guidance on how to reach your goals. It also helps you connect with other health-conscious friends, for additional motivation.
Hotseat
If you’re looking to get employees away from their desks more often, check out Hotseat. This wellness app creates friendly competition around the office. Employees organize challenges, along with the challenge start date and team, and then the last man (or woman) standing is the challenge winner.
Hotseat also sends reminders to encourage users to take two-minute activity breaks. And it integrates with iCal, so it sends the reminders based on that user’s specific schedule.
MyFitnessPal
This is an oldie but still a goodie. MyFitnessPal continues to be ranked one of the best fitness apps. It features a free and easy-to-use calorie counter that lets users quickly track their meals, snacks and coffee (and other drinks) intake throughout the day using a database that holds over 5 million different types of foods. Being able to easily track what you eat throughout the day can help you better balance calorie intake and reach your weight loss goals.
Elevate
Wellness doesn’t just mean going to the gym and watching what you eat. The brain needs exercise, too. And although we hope you’re using your brain during the workday, there are probably still some certain skill sets where you’d like to improve.
Elevate is a “cognitive training app” offering 35-plus activities to help improve pronunciation, name recall, comprehension, precision, focus, etc. This personalized brain training happens in a game-like format to make exercising your brain fun.