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Can the Corporate Fitness Center Make a Strong Comeback?

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These days, many facets of work life are changing. But here’s one trend you may not have been expecting to see: The return of the corporate fitness center. Why is this happening?

Many employers are requiring staff to return to the office for at least several days a week. In fact, 77% of Fortune 100 companies have already adopted hybrid work schedules.

As a result of this shift, employees are expressing interest in reconnecting with colleagues they saw only on Zoom calls during the pandemic. With the days of forced remote work behind us, people naturally want to strengthen work relationships. And smart employers are responding in creative ways that build a sense of community.

This shift opens the door for a corporate fitness center comeback. However, the fitness facility of 2023 looks a bit different than you may recall from the past. Today’s corporate fitness center is becoming a community hub of sorts for employees who share an interest in health and wellbeing.

Inside the New Corporate Fitness Center

You’ll still see employees showing up at the corporate fitness center for individual workouts. But you’ll also see them participating in a variety of other activities such as:

  • Small group training sessions
  • “Buddy Sessions”
  • Wellness challenges of all sorts
  • Educational classes, seminars and series

Some are even involved in workshops with registered dieticians who are helping them embrace a lifestyle of holistic health and wellness.

In the broader health and wellness industry, boutique and specialized fitness gyms are already doing an excellent job of delivering programs like these. In fact, they’ve hit a new gear recently, primarily because they’re able to develop a “tribe” culture, where people work together and hold one another accountable for reaching their goals.

I think we’ll see corporate fitness centers fulfilling that same need in 2023. Here are 3 key ways they’re already rising to the challenge…

3 Fresh Corporate Fitness Center Moves

1. Growth in personal and small-group training

In the fitness centers we manage for clients, we’re seeing a huge surge in employees signing up for personal and small group training opportunities. As I mentioned above, this trend is largely driven by employees’ desire to reconnect and build deeper bonds with their colleagues. But another factor is involved here, too. People are looking for the special kind of accountability and support that comes with peer-to-peer programs.

As an employee at one of our client sites recently explained: “My workout motivation starts in the fitness center. I love my gym friends and the staff! We all need community, and the fitness center community is so important to me. I didn’t realize how much I missed being physically present here during these past few years.”

Requests for personal training are also exceeding pre-pandemic levels at many of the corporate fitness centers we manage. And we’re finding that employees are looking for more than just physical training during these sessions.

We know we’re serving savvier fitness consumers who have clear expectations about what they want to gain from membership in a corporate fitness club. And we’re expanding our scope to incorporate more facets of wellbeing into these programs. For example, we now include education and support for stress management, sleep education, and nutrition basics.

2. More collaboration with employee clubs

Partnering with existing on-campus interest groups is a great way to tap into audiences that are already connected and engaged. For example, we recently helped a technology industry corporate fitness center collaborate with multiple employee clubs for the company’s “Spirit Week” activities and annual 5K run.

Also, for one of our medical technology clients, we partnered with on-campus veterans clubs to engage members in customized fitness challenges. For Navy vets we arranged a rowing challenge, while Marines performed tire flips, and Army vets focused on push-ups. Then we pivoted the military fitness challenge to a 1k/5k run, so hybrid workers could easily participate from anywhere, anytime, depending on their schedules.

3. The rise of hybrid fitness memberships

I think we’ll also see corporate fitness centers get creative in how they deliver services to employees. They’re already doing this with so-called “hybrid memberships.” This relatively new kind of membership model gives employees a chance to tailor their wellness activities to their schedule.

Let’s say your employees work on a hybrid schedule where they’re at the office two to three days a week. On those days, it’s easy to workout at the on-site fitness center, where they get a great club experience as well as opportunities for social interaction. Then, on days when people work remotely, they can participate in virtual fitness activities from home.

This way, they can join live or live-streamed fitness classes, and also tap into on-demand content for convenient access to activities no matter where they’re located. Also, with these new hybrid memberships, they can now visit local yoga, boxing and pilates studios, so they can fit workouts into their schedule whenever and wherever it makes sense for them.

We’re seeing lots of enthusiasm for this model — combining on-site sessions, partner gym networking and at-home workouts — with the corporate fitness center as the hub of all these wellness activities.

Final Thoughts

The overarching theme here is convenience and simplicity. Whether employees are working on-site, remotely or in hybrid mode — we want to help them stay active and maintain healthy habits. Now, corporate fitness centers can support these goals in more ways than ever. Keeping things simple, accessible, and fun is the key to consistency.

I know from experience that with benefits, “more” isn’t always better. It’s really about benefits that are relevant, useful, and easy to apply. And with the advances we’re seeing in corporate fitness centers, I think wellness programs will soon become even more valuable and popular among employers and employees, alike.

12 Ways to Prioritize Employee Wellness

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Organizations have long considered employee wellness a priority. But in the wake of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever. Here’s why: 99% of organizations are facing talent challenges. And after years of disruption, workforce wellbeing is on especially shaky ground. Investing in wellness could go a long way to restore employee confidence and commitment.

Indeed, even before Covid, research found that when employers made workforce wellbeing a priority, they could significantly boost productivity and other key business metrics.

That’s why we asked HR and business leaders to answer the question: “What are some effective strategies to prioritize employee wellness?” From simple in-the-moment exercises to formal, ongoing programs, the answers are as diverse as the individuals who responded. Here are 12 of the best ideas we received:

  • Involve Employees in Wellness Program Design
  • Hire a Chief Wellbeing Officer
  • Promote Integrative Breathing Practices
  • Empower People to Embrace Healthy Eating Habits
  • Suggest Simple Mental Fitness Routines
  • Cultivate Better Communication Skills
  • Encourage 5-Minute Clarity Breaks
  • Check-in to Understand Wellness Needs
  • Schedule Regular Health Screenings
  • Train Managers in Soft Skills
  • Conduct Employee Wellness Challenges
  • Include Financial Wellness

To learn more about how your organization can make the most of these ideas, read the full responses below…

12 Ways to Make Employee Wellness a Priority


1. Involve Employees in Wellness Program Design

The most successful employee wellness programs address individual needs while supporting overall workforce health goals. Programs designed without employee input lead to low commitment and participation.

To avoid this, assess employee needs upfront to identify factors that influence their health. This helps you prioritize offerings that employees are likely to find worthwhile. It can also open the door to innovative ideas you might not otherwise consider.

As a baseline, conduct an anonymous organization-wide intake survey that asks employees to identify key wellness issues and objectives, as well as tools and resources they think can help them achieve their goals. If possible, also arrange face-to-face conversations or online public forums so people can discuss ideas with others if they choose.

Then use this input as a guide to define, develop, implement, promote and manage your initiatives. Continue to seek regular feedback. Also, be prepared to make modifications. This collaborative “continuous improvement” approach can lead to a more robust, effective program that both employees and management take pride in.

Monique Costello, Wellness Educator and Functional Medicine Coach, Happy Eats Healthy

 

2. Hire a Chief Wellbeing Officer

Many companies are building more robust, healthy corporate cultures where employees feel valued and respected. But true corporate resilience requires an intentional, integrated effort. It starts with leadership’s commitment to improving and sustaining employee performance and wellbeing. And increasingly, we’re seeing this agenda as the primary responsibility of an emerging role: Chief Wellbeing Officer (CWO).

CWOs are not only the go-to person for all employee wellness issues. They also work in concert with other executive officers across the organization to lead by example, supporting an environment of openness, advocacy, shared values, and collective purpose.

In the wake of the pandemic, many CWOs are focusing heavily on burnout and its effects on individual wellness and performance. To address this complex issue, initiatives often integrate multiple elements, such as adjusted work policies, targeted educational workshops, 1:1 health/resilience coaching, enhanced mental health resources, break rooms, workout facilities, and more.

Viktoria Levay, Corporate Wellness Coach and Resilience Trainer, LÉVAY


3. Promote Integrative Breathing Practices

Excessive stress has a negative impact on every functional system in the human body. So, for organizations to help employees achieve maximum health benefits, wellness efforts should be accessible to all and easy to integrate into daily habits. A thoughtful workforce breathing program can offer that kind of benefit.

Proper breathing techniques can improve physical health as well as productivity, creativity, and mental acuity. A holistic breathing program can improve employee health outcomes on an individual and team level while elevating overall workforce wellbeing. For lasting results, design, implement and maintain this program with a top-down, inside-out approach.

What does this look like? Make a lasting commitment to promoting effective breathing practices. And be sure to share progress so employees will want to continue this habit.

Lisa Charles, CEO, Embrace Your Fitness, LLC

 

4. Empower People to Embrace Healthy Eating Habits

Everyone needs to eat, but some of us make better food choices than others. Educating employees about how to nourish themselves with smart nutritional habits can help them prevent chronic health conditions. It also improves work productivity, performance, and wellbeing.

Here’s a strategy for motivating employees to incorporate a healthy diet into their daily lives: Offer live cooking sessions with a health coach. Participants can taste nutritious alternative foods and learn how easy it can be to cook healthy meals. They can also find out how some foods reverse chronic diseases such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease in as little as eight weeks.

And here are bonus benefits: Research says that employees who eat together feel better, have more sustained energy, and are more engaged and productive at work.

Claudia Grace, Health and Wellness Coach, Claudia Grace


5. Suggest Simple Mental Fitness Routines

Negative thought patterns can increase stress, which in turn, causes attention, engagement and productivity to decrease. But through education, you can help employees intercept these troubling thoughts, and shift to a positive mindset. People who consistently apply these techniques can strengthen their focus, improve their health and achieve peak performance.

When employees feel triggered by a conversation or stressed about a challenging workload, they can take a mental time-out and engage their senses for 10-15 seconds. Anyone can activate this mental “reset” process by focusing intently on a nearby object. Pay attention to its color, shape, texture and small defining details. Then shift focus away to a distant sound, such as a conversation, a ringing phone, or a passing car. Another helpful exercise is to slowly rub two fingers together for several seconds. Notice the temperature and texture of your skin as you move your fingertips.

These micro-meditations help shift your focus away from negative thought patterns and reduce unwanted stress. 

Lisa Hammett, Success Coach, Author, and Motivational Speaker, Success Coaching

 

6. Cultivate Better Communication Skills

As kids, we all learn how to talk. But sadly, very few of us are taught to communicate well. So as adults, we bring bad habits and patterns from those early years into our work lives. Even when we’re aware of these issues, many of us aren’t sure what we can do to achieve better results. 

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is one of the best toolkits for improving communication. By investing time to understand NLP, people can begin to recognize why they respond to situations the way they do. It also helps them listen to teammates to improve understanding, rather than listening to reply. 

Everyone wants to be heard and understood. That’s why building these skills can work miracles for organizations that want to encourage better relationships among employees. By strengthening communication, teams can work effectively to grow a happier, more profitable organization.

Christina Beauchemin, Founder, Let My Legacy Be Love, LLC

 

7. Encourage 5-Minute Clarity Breaks

Here’s a simple strategy. Recommend that employees replace a daily coffee break with 5 minutes of meditation. This can reduce stress and anxiety while increasing focus, clarity, and productivity.

The process is simple to teach. Ask participants to set a timer, close their eyes, sit up straight, and keep both feet on the ground. Inhale deeply through the nose, hold that breath, and count to 7. Then exhale slowly through the mouth, relaxing the shoulders, belly, and hips. Keep your attention focused on your breath and repeat this cycle at least 5 times.

Simple, but not easy. The mind may wander, but when it does, just return to focusing on the rhythm of your breath. People who rely on this routine will soon look forward to these relaxing brakes. There is always time to grab coffee later!

Dani Sheil, Wellness Coach, Dani Sheil

 

8. Check-in to Understand Wellness Needs

Do you have a finger on the pulse of wellness in your organization? Take time to survey employees, so you can get a realistic sense of challenges that affect their health and wellbeing, and the kind of support they would appreciate. Even if your organization doesn’t have a large budget, this process can provide information that will help you focus your efforts where you can make the biggest impact. 

If you don’t have resources to conduct a formal survey, start by integrating questions into existing processes, such as team meetings or performance reviews. The more you engage people in conversations about this, the more effective you can be.

Aileen Axtmayer, Career Coach and Corporate Wellness Speaker, Aspire with Aileen

 

9. Schedule Regular Health Screenings

With access to periodic onsite health screenings, employees can easily monitor their health and catch potential issues early on. Screenings can cover a range of health metrics, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. Establishing this kind of baseline for each employee provides the information they need to define reasonable health goals.

Regular check-ins can also help motivate individuals to work toward positive change and remain accountable for managing their habits on an ongoing basis. Ultimately, prioritizing employee wellness through annual health screenings can lead to a healthier, happier, and more productive workforce.

Benan Yuceer, Founder and Head Coach, BeYu Wellness

10. Train Managers in Soft Skills

Managers play a key role in ensuring that teams have a healthy work environment and access to resources that help them stay healthy and thrive. Organizations can help by ensuring that managers develop the soft skills needed to help employees manage their wellbeing.

Training managers in areas such as empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, collaboration, and adaptability helps them better understand team members and help them in their individual wellness journeys. Managers with effective soft skills are able to proactively support employees and provide a sense of belonging — both of which are important components of overall wellbeing.

Sonia Hunt, Health and Wellness Futurist, Speaker, Coach, and CMO, Sonia Hunt

 

11. Conduct Employee Wellness Challenges

Time-based activity routines can help individuals develop their fitness capabilities and create opportunities for friendly competition. For example, you can set-up step tracking tools and challenge employees to walk at least 10,000 steps a day for at least 15 days a month.

Reward participants who achieve this goal with a small perk. For instance, let “winners” leave work an hour early on any day they choose. Create a Wall of Fame to celebrate all monthly achievers. Over time, you can also recognize those who consistently meet challenge objectives.

Because these challenges are time-based, they can help employees structure their schedule more efficiently. They can even lead to improved efficiency and discipline in other aspects of their lives.

Anjan Goswami, Founder, Mynd Your Fitness

 

12. Include Financial Wellness

Few people enter the workforce with a robust financial education. Currently, four out of five workers live paycheck to paycheck. In fact, 76% of workers told PwC that financial worries negatively impact their productivity. And 55% of these employees spend 3 or more hours a week focusing on finances while at work.

For a happier, healthier, more productive workforce, smart employers are adding personalized financial education tools and resources to their overall wellness agenda. An emergency savings program can help. This makes it possible for employees to contribute a portion of their monthly income to a separate account designated for emergency funds. This not only relieves some money management concerns, but also can be a creative recruitment incentive that attracts higher-quality talent to your organization.

Julie Weidenfeld, President and Chief Wellness Officer, Peak Wealth 360

Which Corporate Fitness Trends Will Shape 2023?

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Content Impact Award - TalentCulture 2022As a corporate fitness professional, one of my favorite activities at the end of each year is to set aside time to look back at what has unfolded over the past 12 months. It helps to review what has worked for our clients (as well as what didn’t work so well). An open-minded, reflective analysis is always a good way to put things into perspective before considering new possibilities and mapping a game plan for the New Year.

As part of this process, I’m constantly tracking what’s happening with corporate fitness trends. So much has changed over the past few years, thanks to the pandemic and the increase in remote work, it’s important to keep ahead of what no longer seems as relevant or useful and what is gaining traction. And in looking toward the year ahead, all the signals indicate that much more change is still to come! 

So, fasten your seatbelts and let’s look at how employers can prepare for the future. Based on trends I’ve been following, along with my direct experience with our teams and our clients in recent months, here are 3 emerging priorities that are likely to define corporate fitness in 2023:

1. More Personalized Training

Get ready for a big surge in employee demand for more personalized services — things like personal training and small group training. Multiple factors are driving this corporate fitness trend. For example:

Early in 2022, as people slowly started to emerge from a more sedentary pandemic lifestyle, I started hearing that employees were looking for help to get back on track with their fitness and wellness goals. Not surprisingly, during the Covid years, many people developed some unhealthy habits — especially in terms of diet and fitness. The isolation of working and living at home full-time didn’t help, either.

Many people are now looking to break out of that cycle and are longing for a stronger sense of community. So, prepare to see an upswing in more intimate training environments that give employees broader support and guidance, along with opportunities to connect with others and share their journey through community experiences.

Also, my clients confirm that employees are interested in wellness goals that involve more than physical workouts, alone. People want to get back in shape, but they also realize the importance of focusing on things like sleep, nutrition and stress management. And this means they’re increasingly interested in a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing. These objectives are often easier to achieve with programs that include individualized coaching.

Digital tracking tools can also be helpful in supporting people in their wellness objectives. Already, more than 20% of Americans are using wearables that provide convenient access to personalized health and fitness data. Many people want to use this data more effectively to develop tailored workouts and lifestyle management programs that will help increase their training efficiency, improve their daily habits and elevate their health outcomes.

2. More “Hybrid” Fitness Program Memberships

Another thing I’m starting to hear often from our clients is that their employees are looking for a seamless, connected fitness experience that aligns with their busy lifestyles. They want to workout where they want, when they want.

This is where “hybrid memberships” come in. These relatively new programs provide employees with a combination of corporate fitness center access and virtual fitness classes, along with partnerships with local yoga, boxing and Pilates studios. 

With these hybrid memberships, employees can workout at their corporate gym, at home or on the road when they’re traveling—all with the convenience of one membership rather than having to cobble it all together themselves. It’s the best of all worlds. And it’s bigger than just a brick-and-mortar fitness center—it’s a program.

Here’s one example: Kevin is a financial services professional in Indiana who comes into the office three days a week. During those visits, he goes to the on-site fitness center to lift weights. Typically, he talks with several fellow employees while he works out. It’s a great social experience. On the other two weekdays he works from home. On those days, he works out with a virtual fitness class through an app that’s connected to his fitness center and the same staff he knows and trusts. Over the weekend, he takes a spin class at a local studio that contracts with his company through the hybrid health program. Again, this hybrid program lets Kevin work out where he wants, when he wants. It’s all built into his schedule!

Inclusive hybrid memberships like these give employees the convenience, choice and variety they’re asking for. Plus, it provides access to the kind of connectedness and community people need with engagement that is hard to find elsewhere.

3. More Active Time Outdoors

We’re also hearing loud-and-clear from clients and employees that they want to get outside and move! A recent survey from the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry and McKinsey & Company, asked employees this key question:

“In which sports/physical activity categories do you expect to see a lasting increase in participation vs. pre-COVID-19?”

Of the 12 categories listed as potential responses, 84% of survey participants picked “outdoor activity” as their first choice. 

Obviously, survey results like these underscore just how massive the pandemic’s impact was on corporate wellness programs. Over the past year, some companies started to experiment with fitness activities and events designed to get employees outdoors. Now it appears that this trend is catching on and may be here to stay.

For instance, one of our clients — a leading insurance company — has invested in a mobile open-air fitness trailer from BeaverFit. This makes it possible for employees to participate in healthy outdoor activities on a daily basis. Combined with programming delivered by on-site fitness professionals, this open air program is flourishing. And workforce wellbeing is improving as a result of employee participation in regular activities with physical and mental health benefits.

Final Notes on the Future of Corporate Fitness

These three corporate fitness trends are only a few of the emerging ideas we can look forward to seeing in 2023, as the space continues to evolve. With more personalized programming, more flexible options, access to innovative digital tools and a broader range of creative fitness locations, employee wellness is poised to make an even stronger comeback in the coming year. I look forward to seeing other innovative trends emerge that we aren’t even thinking about yet!