From Sacramento Business Journal

By Danielle Starkey

Who knew you could toss spinach into a fruit smoothie and have no one be the wiser?

Eric Olsen, for one. Olsen, vice president of finance and risk at Ray Stone Inc., volunteered himself and the company’s management team to take turns riding a stationary bike outfitted with a blender to produce smoothies for winners of a company fitness contest.

The smoothies were based on a recipe supplied by Partnership for a Healthy California, which also supplied the bicycle.

It took about 90 seconds of riding to produce each smoothie, Olsen recalled, noting that numerous employees were watching.

“People couldn’t tell the difference between smoothies made with spinach and those without it,” he said. But that didn’t make Olsen a convert.

“I’m not going to add spinach at home,” he confessed, saying that he just doesn’t like the vegetable.

The smoothie stunt took place during the awards ceremony of Take Action, the company’s 10-week contest designed to promote employee health and fitness. The contest had rules specifically designed to encourage participation.

“You set your own fitness goals,” said Donna Hess, human resources benefits coordinator at the property management firm, which has about 120 employees. “They could, for example, say they would exercise 10 to 60 minutes a day, and then signed a pledge to do so. At the midpoint, they could change their goals.

“The results were tracked on a spreadsheet,” she added. “It’s all about reaching goals.”

If employees were free to name their goals, they would be more likely to participate, Hess said. “We had great participation,” she added, pointing out that 64 employees completed the challenge.

Ray Stone manages 22 residential and 15 commercial properties. Employees at more than half the properties produced a team, even though some teams consisted of just one person.

“We had an awards ceremony at which managers made fresh-fruit smoothies for the winning teams,” Hess said. “That was really fun because it’s really fun to see the suits on a bicycle.”

The fitness challenge is just one contest the company sponsors to bring fun into fitness. Another is the nutrition challenge, which involves naming the number of fruits and vegetables to be eaten each day for a designated period, and then actually eating them. The company also offers several healthcare-related seminars, and include articles on health-related subjects in its quarterly newsletter.

About 45 percent of employees participated in the nutrition challenge, slightly less than in the fitness challenge.

According to surveys completed by employees, 100 percent said they’d participate again in the contests, for which top prizes included a $50 Visa gift card, Hess said.

Everybody who signed up for the fitness challenge got a free pedometer, and those who signed up for the nutrition challenge were given reusable grocery bags, among other gifts.

“I would say we’re an older-aged workforce,” Hess said. “We have a lot of employees 40 years old and up.

“With health care costs going up, we did the (health risk assessment) and saw that there were areas we could really help our employees improve their health and hopefully, slow down the rise in our health care costs and get better productivity.”