Improve The Health of Your Business with Employee Gym Memberships
Society has never been more health-conscious than it is today. With the wellness industry booming and fitness, mental health, nutrition and other important aspects of wellbeing increasingly in the spotlight, employers are taking note and naturally prioritising health and wellbeing perks when building out their employee benefits package. And for good reason, too!
Employee gym memberships in particular are an essential ingredient in the mix of health-related employee benefits. Offering cheaper or, in some cases, free memberships for gyms to employees, this benefit enables people to prioritise their overall wellbeing through physical activity and in doing so, boost their physical, mental and financial health.
In this blog, we’re going to explore how employee gym discounts can significantly benefit your employees and business, maximising performance, resilience and engagement. Let’s jump in!
Employee boost: The benefits of offering employee gym memberships
Employee gym discounts make exercising in a gym, leisure centre or fitness club more accessible and, as a result of that, more personally appealing to individuals. The opportunity to get a cheaper membership is a brilliant incentive for people to prioritise their health and wellness when they otherwise may not. The impact? Wellbeing boosts to four key areas:
No surprises here! Exercise has a hugely positive impact on our overall physical health. With the ability to go to the gym and add regular movement into their weekly routine, your employees will enjoy a range of health improvements that’ll help them flourish in life.
Physical Health
- Boosted general fitness: While individuals may focus on a specific type of fitness when they hit the gym, they’ll naturally see improvements in almost all areas.
- Prevent chronic illnesses: Regular physical activity will help reduce your employees’ risk of major illnesses like heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
- Reduced risk of injuries: With increased fitness, the body naturally has better protection against injury as a result of improved strength, stability and endurance.
- Improved immune system: The stronger and more resilient your employees are, the better their bodies are at fighting off illnesses.
Movement makes us feel good! Heard of the ‘runner’s high’? Whatever type of activity your employees choose to do at the gym whether that’s running, strength training, yoga or a mix of different things, they’ll benefit from a biological boost – the increased release of ‘happy hormones’ in their bodies. But beyond that, regular physical activity can have significant, positive long-term effects on your employees’ mental wellness.
Mental Health
- Reduced risk of stress: Movement of any kind can help reduce cortisol levels in the body (our stress hormone), helping us feel more mentally balanced and equipped to tackle life’s challenges.
- Boosted morale and mood: Regular physical activity is known to trigger our ‘happy hormones’ – endorphins, dopamine and serotonin – which enhance feelings of satisfaction and help regulate our mood.
- Better sleep: Regular physical activity reportedly reduces sleepiness throughout the day and supports improved sleep quality, making it easier to fall and stay asleep.
- Improved concentration and memory: Exercise has been shown to improve overall brain function immediately after and long-term, with improved memory and cognition.
By combining the physical and mental benefits of employee gym memberships, you’ll help individuals become more resilient, motivated and confident outside of the gym too. This’ll naturally lead to positive performance outcomes for your business and contribute to building a strong workforce of people that are thriving in and out of work.
Job Performance
- Improved productivity: Regular movement will increase individuals’ mental and physical capacity to perform their daily tasks to a higher standard and challenge themselves to reach new heights.
- Higher engagement: Giving employees the opportunity to be the best versions of themselves will naturally result in them feeling more satisfied with and emotionally connected to your business as an employer.
- Boosted motivation: With enhanced sleep, mood and overall wellbeing following a routine of regular exercise, employees will have a better mindset when approaching their role and responsibilities on a daily basis. It’s that ‘can do!’ attitude!
- Better job satisfaction: Being able to perform at an optimal level at work, while feeling supported by their employer outside of that, employees will experience greater levels of job satisfaction and get more out of their experience with your business.
- Enhanced confidence: Improvements to various areas of their wellbeing will naturally leave employees feeling more capable to take on new challenges than ever and push themselves further – whether that’s professionally, personally or (ideally) both!
The cost of gym memberships really adds up and in today’s tough financial climate, many people simply can’t justify spending the money. Giving your employees access to cheaper gym memberships is a brilliant way to reduce their regular outgoings and make their salaries stretch further. This is especially significant at a time when costs are continuing to increase, and businesses are finding it harder to offer salary increases to their team. This valuable employee benefit means you can support your team’s health and wellbeing, while also reducing their financial pressure.
In most cases, employee gym memberships aren’t tax deductible as it’s considered a personal expense, but this of course depends on how you decide to deliver this type of benefit to your employees and the type of business you work for (more on that later on!).
Financial Health
Business boosts: Why employee gym memberships benefit employers
Beyond supporting your team and boosting different areas of their wellbeing, employee gym memberships will lead to exciting outcomes for your business too. As is the case for many wellbeing-related benefits, the positive effects employees feel naturally translate into boosted performance, retention and morale in the workplace, leading to an enhanced culture and employee engagement.
Improved employee retention
Supporting your team with valuable wellbeing benefits is a tangible way to demonstrate that your business truly cares about its employees as individuals and their lives beyond work, which will contribute to building a loyal, committed workforce. Employee gym memberships are not only relevant and desirable but, if well-utilised, become a staple part of people’s lifestyle and routine, providing another reason for your employees to stick with you long term to continue to enjoy this perk.
Enhanced productivity and performance
High-performance cultures are ones that place employee wellbeing at their core. Why? The better the mental and physical resilience of your employees, the better equipped they’ll be to do their job effectively and contribute to your business’ success. It really is that simple. Having that opportunity to do regular exercise will help improve your employees’ mental clarity, motivation and mood, leading to improved productivity and performance.
Reduction in absenteeism
Regular exercise will strengthen your employees’ physical resilience and has been proven to reduce the risk of major illnesses (NHS). With poor mental health accounting for around half of all work-related illnesses (HSE), there’s a lot to be said for the mental resilience that regular physical activity can build too. Your employees building a solid routine and prioritising their wellbeing for as little as 30 minutes per day will be hugely beneficial and result in them being more likely to show up and give their best at work.
Improved employee morale
Wanting to boost the morale of your team? Introducing employee gym memberships can certainly help with that. Physical movement is a natural mood-booster, with the positive effects increasing the more we do it, even if in short bursts. It gives employees a sense of accomplishment and confidence outside of the workplace, that’ll translate into a happier and more fulfilled team of individuals in work too.
Boosted Employee Attraction
Providing employee gym memberships shows your business’ commitment to supporting employees’ personal welfare, wellbeing and growth. In today’s competitive job market, employees are looking for employers that demonstrate this care and support more than ever. In fact, almost 40% of employees state that they were attracted to their roles by the benefits on offer. So, prioritising wellbeing benefits will contribute to positioning your business as an employer of choice.
How to offer employee gym memberships
There a number of options available to you when it comes to delivering employee gym memberships in your business. Naturally, it depends on what budget you have available, the size of your business, the work environment set-up and more.
Giving your team easy access to discounted gym memberships is an option that caters to all and truly embraces the diverse needs and interests of your employees. You offer discounts at a range of gyms and fitness centres, and employees simply choose the membership that suits them. Sounds good, right? Let’s explore this and the other options available too.
Provide on-site facilities
Some businesses are in the fortunate position to have a gym or exercise facilities on-site and can therefore give their employees free or discounted access. This is a brilliant option if your business has a largely on-site workforce and the budget to develop a facility for this specific need. For employees, this type of employee gym membership is particularly beneficial because of the ease and convenience of having a gym at their place of work. They can seamlessly integrate regular physical activity into their current routine and avoid the need to travel. Lovely stuff!
Partner with local gyms/health centres
An alternative route to providing employee gym memberships is to partner with local fitness facilities. Again, this option is a best-suited to businesses that largely operate on-site – whether that’s a single workplace or multiple spread out across the UK. You can select a nearby gym, partner to negotiate a good membership rate for employees and then offer this out to your workforce. Partnering with a gym or fitness centre will likely mean that your employees have access to better facilities and a superior range of fitness options to offer greater choice as well.
Salary sacrifice scheme
Offering an employee gym membership through a salary sacrifice scheme involves employees giving up a portion of their pre-tax salary to pay for the membership. Salary sacrifice schemes are popular because they typically result in employees making National Insurance savings, but it’s always worth checking the latest guidance on this via HMRC before embarking on this type of benefit. Another benefit of this option is that it’s convenient for employees – they don’t need to think about paying the gym directly as the the membership is paid automatically through their salary.
Offer gym membership discounts
The most convenient and powerful option for businesses wanting to offer employee gym memberships is to provide membership discounts. With Boostworks’ employee gym membership offering, employees choose from over 3,500 gyms, leisure centres and fitness clubs nationwide giving them the freedom to find a facility that suits their personal interests and location. This is valuable for all businesses, but it’s particularly important for those that operate remotely or have a hybrid working set-up and therefore have employees located in various destinations across the country.
How Boostworks can help
Offering Boostworks’ gym discounts means you can bring this attractive employee perk into your wider employee wellbeing and rewards strategy, making it accessible from our single mobile app and web platform for ease of use and, ultimately, increased employee uptake. Because what’s better than offering employee gym discounts? Offering a range of other brilliant wellbeing benefits, personalised rewards, peer-to-peer recognition, retail discounts and other valuable tools to drive connection, culture and engagement.
We work with over 400 UK businesses to do just that and pride ourselves on bringing a real human approach to our partnerships to help people thrive.
Want to boost your employees’ wellbeing? Book a chat with our expert team today!
