How to do a step challenge at work, start to finish

1. Get the yes before you get the enthusiasm

Every workplace step challenge that goes wrong goes wrong here. Someone announces it, forty people sign up, and then a manager asks whether the company will see anyone's health data, whether it is compulsory, and who is paying. Answer those three before you post anything.

The answers that keep it simple: participation is voluntary and people can leave any time; the employer sees nothing beyond a display name, whether the person is still in, and their step counts for the challenge; and one person or one small budget line covers the tool. In Stepr, joining is free for every employee and only the organiser ever pays, so the budget question is usually settled in one sentence.

2. Pick dates that give people a week

Announce roughly a week before day one. People need to install an app, grant the health permission, and if they use a watch, check it is actually writing steps somewhere. Challenges that start the day they are announced lose the half of the office that was in a meeting.

Avoid a start week with a company offsite, a public holiday or a big deadline; those are the weeks people are most likely to miss a day and drop out early, which sours the whole thing. A Monday start reads well and gives you two full weekends before anybody is under real pressure.

3. Set a day-one goal nobody fails

The single biggest mistake is a goal that knocks people out immediately. If the bar is 10,000 steps from day one, your desk-bound colleagues are eliminated on day one and never think about it again. Start low enough to be slightly embarrassing, then let it climb.

For a mixed office, 2,000 steps on day one rising 250 a day is a good default: week one is easy, week two is a walk at lunch, and by week three the people still in have built something. For a desk-heavy team try 1,500 rising 200. For a team that already walks, 3,000 rising 100 keeps it going for over a month.

• Desk-heavy office: 1,500 on day one, +200 a day
• Mixed office: 2,000 on day one, +250 a day (about three to six weeks)
• Active team: 3,000 on day one, +100 a day (over a month)
• Short sprint before a holiday: 1,000 on day one, +500 a day (about a week)

4. Decide solo or teams

Solo is the easiest to explain and the easiest to run: every person clears the same daily bar. It suits offices under about thirty people.

Teams change the social dynamic. In a Stepr team lobby the daily goal is the league goal multiplied by the team size, and a whole team goes out together if the combined number falls short. That means a colleague who is travelling gets carried by the rest, and the team messages each other at 8 pm, which is the point. Split by department, by floor, or draft the teams so the two keenest walkers are not on the same one.

5. Fix the data source, not the honour system

The fastest way to kill a workplace challenge is one person who is suspiciously at 30,000 steps every day. Do not run it on submitted numbers. Agree that steps come from a phone or a watch, automatically, and that there is no way to add them by hand.

Stepr reads the iPhone's motion sensor and Apple Health, which is where an Apple Watch, Garmin or Fitbit already writes its steps. Each report is signed by the device, and the whole league can see which kind of device recorded each person's count. There is no manual entry screen, so there is nothing to argue about. Steps must come from an iPhone today; Stepr has no Android app yet, so in a mixed-phone office Android colleagues can follow the live standings but cannot compete.

6. Write the announcement once

One pinned message beats five reminders. Say what day one is, what the day-one goal is, that the goal rises every day, what happens when you miss it, and where to join. Something like:

“We are running a step challenge starting Monday the 5th. Day one is 2,000 steps and the goal goes up 250 every day after. Miss the goal and you are out; last one walking wins. Free to join, nothing to fill in, steps come from your phone. Code: ABC123. Grab the app this week so the permission is sorted before Monday.”

7. Then get out of the way

If the tool settles each day on its own, running the challenge is not a job. Nobody chases numbers, nobody updates a sheet on Friday afternoon. The app warns each player at 9 pm if they are short, so people lose on their legs rather than on a forgotten sync, and the standings page is a link anyone with the code can open without an account.

Your only job after day one is to post the standings once a week and say something nice about whoever just went out.

Questions people ask

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