The old saying "it pays to be active" couldn't be truer for Palmetto GBA employees with the company’s “Get in the Habit” campaign. The goal of this campaign is to complete a targeted amount of physical activity (biking, running, walking, swimming, exercising, and more) during a two-week challenge cycle. Participants can earn Paid Time Off (PTO) throughout the year for being active and tracking/syncing their activity. Each challenge runs for two weeks incentivizing participants to get up, get out, and be active. The overall goal is that participants must complete a minimum of 33 miles every 14 days to earn one hour of PTO. Many of our employees call on other co-workers to help and encourage them to be more active. Our Jurisdiction J MAC Provider Enrollment team took the program a bit further. Through a unique idea, brainstormed by Director Teresa Newton, came a spinoff of the original “Get in the Habit”. Teresa decided to challenge her team to a six-week exercise program to not only promote exercise but team building as well.

The challenge rules for participating are simple. First, get together with co-workers and form a group of ten or fewer people to compete in the challenge. Next, pick a unique and fun team name and select a team captain. Then you're off to the races.

Over six weeks, the Jurisdiction J MAC Provider Enrollment department created five teams named: Thin it to Win it, Team Hurricane, The Dream Team, The Chosen Ones, and The Step Crushers with over 35 employees participated in the challenge.

According to Teresa Newton, “The majority of my team is not in one specific location; that is why I wanted to create this challenge that promotes connecting and sharing as well as team-building. This way, even though the team is not physically together, they can still have that social connection.”

After multiple weeks of participating in the challenge, Thin it to Win it was crowned the champion with over 924.31 miles of activity Sha'Nell Wells of the team clocked in 256.09 miles alone. "PTO was a great way to incentivize our team, but bragging rights for the winners were by far the selling point of the challenge," says Teresa.

The final numbers of the challengers are as follows:
1st place - Thin it to Win It (924.31 miles)
2nd place - The Chosen Ones (837.23 miles)
3rd place - The Dream Team (697.3 miles)
4th place - Team Hurricane (640.4 miles)
5th place - The Step Crushers (479.55 miles)

“Even after the challenge has ended, I still see many teammates join each other to exercise and be active. This has been a great team-building activity” – Teresa Newton

We congratulate the JJ Provider Enrollment team for being innovative and creating a unique way for employees to stay active and have fun together during the summer months. Think you can beat their results? Reach out to your division and find ways that you can challenge your co-workers.