What is a Virtual Health Fair?

Throwing a Virtual Health Fair is a fantastic way to launch new employee wellness initiatives, raise awareness about health issues, and generally show your employees you care about their well being!  A well produced virtual health fair provides a unique perk that benefits both the company and the employees.  Of course, not all virtual health fairs are created equally.

Want yours to really rock? Here are our tips and best practices to make sure it does!

1. Use a Theme for your virtual health fair. A theme will not only help you market it, but will help you focus in on the kinds of activities and sponsors you want to include. You can always go with a national monthly health observance like American Heart Month (February) or Canada’s Healthy Workplace Month (Oct). Or, for a different approach, check out some of the fun ideas such as:

  • Home Run to Health
  • Wellness Rocks
  • Catch the Wellness Wave
  • Super Heroes, Super Health
  • Fitness Fiesta

BambooHR hosted a virtual conference themed “Reaching the Summit”.

GE used a Super Hero theme for their virtual employee event. Clickable picture frames were hidden throughout the virtual environment with images of the GE leadership team wearing super hero costumes.

2. Vendors and Sponsors: Think Outside the Box!

Insurance companies, local gyms, and health organizations are no-brainers, But there’s a whole world of ideas out there. Get your local bike shops involved. Invite health food vendors who can incorporate links to healthy recipes and cooking video’s inside their booth.

Virtual Health Fair

Once you’ve identified your vendors and sponsors, make sure you extend your invitations well in advance. And plan for cancellations.

3. Incorporate gamification and offer goodies and incentives to promote participation and motivation among employees. Consider items that are health-related and/or support the theme of your health fair. Ask vendors who are participating in the health fair if they can donate incentive/raffle items.

To encourage participation in the health fair, enable each participant to earn points for activities such as visiting booths, viewing webinars or other content items. Attendees that achieve a predetermined number of points are eligible for a free gift or entered in a prize drawing.

Benefits Fair Games

Also announce instant prizes throughout the live day(s) to provide excitement and continuous participation by offering hourly raffle drawings.

 

4. Recognize employees who are participating in your regular wellness incentives by setting up an awards or recognition lounge. Locations and rooms can be timed to appear at certain points during the virtual health fair.

award wall

5. Bring in special guests (company executives, wellness experts, thought leaders) through Webinars, videos and online chats to answer questions, share best practices.

Lounge

6.Rock the Demonstrations and Activities by using video and links web-pages to provide virtual hands-on learning. Some ideas include videos explaining:

  • CPR
  • Yoga
  • Exercise equipment demonstrations
  • Healthy cooking
  • First aid
  • Ergonomics
  • Proper lifting
  • Aerobic step demonstrations

With any of these activities, ask if your vendor has freebies. Freebies are great incentives for participants to come to your event. A sign can be placed in booths so attendees can click to request a sample or sign up for a newsletter.

7. Kick Off a Fitness Challenge – Health fairs are a great time for announcing company fitness challenges. SnackNation offers an excellent guide on how to create a killer office fitness challenge in 4 weeks or less. For example, they share,corporate wellness company Fitbug institute a daily wall sit challenge where employees increase the duration of their wall sits by 10 seconds each day, going until the last person remains standing. They write: “This serves as a fun fitness challenge idea that gets the whole office involved, and is a great way to get the competitive juices flowing!”

8. Get people out of their comfort zones and into online chat forums. The odds are, if they’re emailing you a question, someone else in your company is asking the same thing but afraid to contact your team. By using online chat forums, other employees can find the answers they’re looking for easily (and save you time by only answering a question once).

With all the changes happening in the world of health care, its more important than ever that your employees understand their health and wellness options. These strategies will help you increase your participation and provide your employees with a personalized, fun and informative experience.

For more information visit Communique’s Virtual Health Fair platform website.

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