Organizational Wellness

The Ultimate Guide to Hosting an Engaging Employee Health Fair

Last Updated Mar 5, 2025

Time to read: 16 minutes

Bring wellness straight to your team with an employee health fair featuring health screenings! These events give your your team direct access valuable resources — from health screenings and expert consultations to hands-on wellness workshops — all in one vibrant, interactive event. With these wellness features available on-site, employees can check their blood pressure, get fitness tips, and learn stress-management techniques without the usual hassle or cost.

These health fairs make wellness easy, accessible, and proactive, empowering employees to stay ahead of health concerns and take charge of their wellbeing. And the impact? A motivated team that feels genuinely supported, reduced absenteeism, and a boost in productivity that powers up your entire company culture. Studies even show that companies which invest into employee health perform better in the stock market. What's not to kove?

Ready to create an event that energizes your team and fosters a stronger, healthier workplace? Let’s dive into the essentials for hosting a health fair that leaves a lasting impact!

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What is an Employee Health Fair?

An employee health fair is like a wellness festival right in your workplace! It’s a lively, one-stop event where your team can explore their health, discover new wellness resources, and get inspired to make healthy choices. Picture it: health screenings (e.g., glucose levels), expert consultations, hands-on workshops, and interactive booths from local wellness pros — all there to help your team feel their best.

This event is more than convenient: it’s empowering! With everything from blood pressure checks to mental wellness sessions, employees get proactive tools for their health without leaving the office. And here’s the bonus: a health fair boosts team morale, reduces absenteeism, and creates a more vibrant, energized workplace. It’s the ultimate way to show your team you’re invested in their wellbeing while building a stronger, healthier culture that everyone can thrive in.

Benefits of Hosting an Employee Health Fair

Health fairs help make your workplace healthier by raising awareness. They also help employees spot possible health issues early, so they can start taking action to address the problem before it gets bad.

Appreciation From Employees

Your employees will appreciate you if you show them that you care about them. Putting on an employee health fair shows them that you genuinely care about their wellbeing and want to see them prosper even outside of work.

This makes them feel that their organization supports and appreciates them individually, which can really motivate them. They'll even recommend you to other people looking for jobs.

Convenient and Valuable Health Education

An employee health fair is a great time to give employees valuable education on health and wellbeing without feeling pushy. It lets employees actively learn about topics they may have wanted to look into on their own but couldn't put their time into researching.

For example, they could learn about their:

Fitness levels: You could bring in a health professional to assess their physical fitness levels to promote a healthy lifestyle.
Blood pressure: Blood pressure monitors are relatively inexpensive for a health fair but feel like a bigger investment for an individual. Many people don't know if their blood pressure is high without checking.
Flexibility: Most people don't think about the value of flexibility in preventing injuries. So they tend to think of stretching as unnecessary, which leads to many avoidable injuries.
Glucose and cholesterol levels: Like blood pressure, most people don't know about their glucose or cholesterol levels until they hit a point where they need medicine to correct them.

Offering these resources, education, and testing accessibly and conveniently empowers your employees to take control of their own wellbeing.

Inspired and Motivated Employees

A hands-on approach is the best way to involve and inspire your employees. Most people only speak to a healthcare professional when they visit the doctor. This is something they usually do only when there's a specific problem, so they won't have a more general wellbeing chat. Giving them a forum to directly talk to healthcare experts and peers for tips on living a healthy lifestyle lets them take control of their lives in a powerful way.

Group involvement also motivates employees, since they can set out on their wellness journey together. This includes planning group challenges or making a group chat to share their efforts and results. With more people working towards a common goal, they build stronger relationships and encourage each other to keep going. Setting up interactive, fun health events can kickstart these bonds.

Reduced Absenteeism

As revealed in our Return on Wellbeing 2024 report, 89% of HR leaders said that employees in wellbeing programs took fewer sick days.

Employees who know more about their health and have access to resources that support their wellbeing are more likely to take proactive steps to stay healthy. So they end up taking fewer sick days and less time off work for illnesses, making your company more productive and raising attendance.

Higher Productivity

Healthier employees are happier employees. Better health also adds to their productivity, as shown in a recent study in the Journal of Education Humanities and Social Sciences. By investing into employee wellness and helping them feel physically and mentally well, you help raise their daily energy levels and focus. This prepares them to finish their work efficiently.

Team Building And Collaboration

Employee health fairs are a great way to inspire team building and collaboration among employees, especially those who may be jaded with typical team building retreats. Interactive activities and shared experiences that revolve around employees' wellness needs help them connect on a personal level, forging stronger relationships.

While these bonds form to help each other outside of work, they also improve communication and synergy within the company as well.

Cost Savings for the Organization

You can really cut your company's healthcare costs from chronic diseases by promoting preventive care and encouraging healthier lifestyles. A healthier workforce also generally needs fewer sick leaves, saving you money on expenses related to employee absences.

9 Employee Health Fair Ideas

The key to a successful wellness event? Make it interactive, educational, and—most importantly—fun! Leverage any of these nine creative ideas to start planning your event.

Wellness Passport Challenge

Give employees a "passport" with different wellness stations. As they visit each one—whether it's a biometric screening, a meditation booth, or a hydration check—they get a stamp. Employees who collect a certain number of stamps can enter a raffle for prizes like fitness gear or a free gym membership.

Live Fitness Demos

Bring in personal trainers or local fitness instructors to lead mini workout sessions—think yoga, stretching, or even a dance break. Employees can join in, test out different workouts, and find one they love!

Stress Relief Zone

Create a relaxation lounge with massage chairs, guided breathing sessions, and even therapy dogs. Offer short mindfulness workshops to help employees learn stress-management techniques they can use every day.

On-the-Spot Health Screenings

Offer free health check-ups like blood pressure screenings, cholesterol tests, and BMI assessments. Partner with local healthcare providers to bring in professionals who can offer insights and recommendations.

Hydration & Nutrition Station

Set up a smoothie bar or hydration station with infused water and fresh juices. Have a registered dietitian on-site to answer nutrition questions and offer healthy snack samples with recipe cards.

Day-Of Step Challenge

Let employees test out fitness trackers and challenge them to a step competition during the fair. Whoever logs the most steps by the end of the day wins a wellness prize!

Mental Health Resources Booth

Provide information on employee mental health benefits, access to therapists, and stress-reduction tips. Bring in mental health professionals for quick, confidential Q&A sessions to help break down stigma.

"Ask the Expert" Panels

Host short, engaging Q&A sessions with health experts—nutritionists, trainers, sleep specialists, or even financial wellness coaches. Employees can ask questions and walk away with actionable advice.

Health & Wellness Swag Bags

Send employees home with goodie bags filled with healthy snacks, wellness journals, resistance bands, and self-care essentials. Bonus: Include coupons for local wellness services like gym trials or meditation classes.

How to Plan an Employee Health Fair

The planning process for a well executed health fair takes time. You need to be certain that you've put together an event that brings genuine value to the employees who participate. That way, the buzz this event creates will inspire employees who attended and build momentum that pushes those who missed the first one to attend the next.

Phase 1: Planning Your Employee Health Fair

The first step is ideation. Here, you work out the high-level points of the health fair — like your goals and budget — as well as who will be in charge of setting it up.

Step 1: Set clear objectives

There are a lot of topics your health fair can cover. It's best to think about a few specific health outcomes you want to achieve. Some examples include:

Increased awareness of mental wellness resources
Improved nutrition habits
Greater knowledge of beneficial fitness routines
Deeper insight into current health parameters

You should also think through how you'll measure the success of your event. While you should be able to tell in the long run — through metrics like cost reductions and higher attendance — you can't tell how much the fair itself contributed compared to your other employee wellness measures. To directly see the impact of your health fair, you can track metrics like the following over time, comparing them before and after the fair to see the change:

Employee and vendor participation rates
Feedback surveys
Health-related discussions in the coming weeks
Health insurance co-pays
Absenteeism rates

Step 2: Budgeting and logistics

Try to nail down a budget as early as possible in the planning process. Health fair costs can vary greatly, depending on the number of participants and activities you include. Your goals should help you figure out how to allocate your budget spending.

Some costs that you can't avoid will include:

Venue fees
Vendor charges
Marketing materials
Food and beverages
Swag or incentives
Equipment rental, like blood pressure monitors
Communications

And there are also some pieces to consider that, while not necessary, can help add to the event. For example:

Projectors and screens for video demonstrations
Decorations
Biometric screenings

If you have a limited budget, your planning should include creative ways to get free or low-cost options within your organization. Some examples to try include:

Asking vendors to provide swag or an item for a raffle draw.
Partnering with schools or local businesses.
Offering different levels of sponsorship, so companies you approach can contribute whatever amount they think makes sense for them.
Providing advertising opportunities at the event for sponsors.
Invite free vendors, like those who are typically happy to spread health education. These can include your local department of public health, or businesses that can profit just from increased brand recognition and signups, like local gyms, health insurance providers, and health food stores.

Another key logistical element to think about is your timeline. Start with setting an event date and time, working around peak vacation dates and current schedules. If you have employees at multiple locations, you can consider sending a "health fair in a bag" to the people who can't attend onsite. This can contain useful checklists, cheat sheets, and brochures, as well as ways they can access benefits that vendors offer at your health fair.

With these basic logistics laid out, you can pitch your plan to your organization's leadership team. Once you have their go-ahead, you can start putting together a timeline to help you stay organized and on track.

Step 3: Form a planning committee

Putting together an event on your own on top of your regular work is an immense task. So, after getting your leadership team's support, it's a good idea to put together a health fair planning committee. This group is responsible for coordinating and planning all the activities associated with your health fair.

When you form the group, try to get representation from different departments and levels. Ideally, at least one person in the committee is able to speak for each section of the organization. This makes sure you can address issues that the majority of your workforce faces.

The variety also brings in more diverse ideas and viewpoints on topics to address, vendors to include, and ways to market the event.

You should then allocate the workload, so everyone has a clear idea of what they need to do. Some roles to fill include:

Marketing
Scheduling venue
Sponsor outreach
Vendor outreach
Planning activities
Buying or renting equipment
Sourcing giveaway items
Budgeting
Welcoming participants to the event and tracking participation
Food and snacks
Photographer and/or videographer

The planning committee should consider a few questions as well:

Will you need extra insurance?
How will you manage parking at the venue?
Do vendors or guests need a guest pass?

You might also need to recruit a few more volunteers for help on the day of the event, who can help with tasks like:

Set-up and clean-up
Welcoming vendors and giving directions
Taking photos, if you haven't arranged for a photographer
Distributing and collecting evaluation forms

Discuss whether you will need day-of volunteers with the planning committee ahead of time. Make sure you recruit them early and set up a pre-event meeting with all volunteers to discuss event details and assign duties. It's also a good idea to ask them to wear matching t-shirts or badges, so attendees can easily identify them.

Phase 2: Engaging Activities and Vendors

The success of your event hinges on how your attendees feel about the activities and vendors you hosted. There are many great options to explore, depending on your health fair's goals.

Step 4: Interactive health screenings

A blood pressure monitor and blood tests for cholesterol and glucose levels are a great start for a health fair that aims to build awareness in individuals about their current fitness levels. But there are many other innovative options you can try out that might stick with the participants.

For example:

Stress level assessments, which may help them understand why they don't always feel at their best.
Sleep quality analyses, which intrigues people who know that they sometimes wake up feeling worse than other days and can't figure out why.
Posture checks, which people love because they know posture is important, but it's hard to diagnose exactly how they hold their own body out of alignment.
Fitness challenges like obstacle courses or jump rope competitions, which activate the more competitive people in a fun, engaging way.
Yoga sessions or pilates demonstrations, which can introduce people to fun fitness activities they may have otherwise shied away from.
Nutrition label scavenger hunts, which can arm people with the knowledge of what to look for on nutrition labels.

Step 5: Wellness workshops and demonstrations

Good workshops and demonstrations stick in people's memories and show them that wellness doesn't need to be as difficult as they think. It's good to feature a variety of engaging workshops, like:

Stress management techniques
Healthy cooking demonstrations
Mindfulness and meditation sessions
Ergonomics and workplace wellness
Healthy DIY smoothie stations
Mini bootcamp classes

Step 6: Expert speakers

It's a good idea to invite healthcare professionals, nutritionists, or fitness experts to give presentations or conduct Q&A sessions.

Great speakers can connect with people and give them powerful takeaways. At a health fair, employees who were inspired by a speech can also easily come up to them later to talk more in-depth. This is a great opportunity they can't get from watching the same speaker on YouTube or at a bigger event.

Step 7: Vendor selection

The vendors at your event can be a selling point of their own. If an employee has been looking for a good gym, meeting someone from a local one and possibly getting a discount for their membership may give them the push they needed to register. As an added bonus, getting more vendors can also mean more funding for your event.

Some great vendors to consider include:

Local gyms and fitness studios
Healthy food and beverage providers
Mental health organizations
Financial wellness advisors
Physical therapists

Phase 3: Promoting Your Health Fair

Once you know what your health fair will cover and the activities it will host, it's time to spread the word about it. Your committee members will no doubt talk to their peers about the event, but there are many ways to get a much wider reach.

Step 8: Multi-channel marketing

Take advantage of all the communication channels within your company to reach employees. Your company intranet, a company-wide email, posters and flyers in the office, and social media promotions are great options.

Make sure to customize the promotional materials to suit the medium you pick. For example, a flyer should be vibrant, using one or two captivating images to catch the eye, and can include a small program list. An email, on the other hand, can use more text. You can split text up with different headers and bulleted lists so it never feels too heavy, allowing you to provide more detail.

If possible, it would also be a great idea to send out periodic internal emails, each spotlighting a different speaker or activity that you think would encourage people to attend.

Step 9: Incentivize participation

Especially if this is your first employee health fair, it helps to let people know they'll get something tangible in return for their attendance. You could offer raffle prizes, giveaways, or other small incentives to participants to encourage them to attend.

Step 10: Create a buzz

Try different ways to build excitement leading up to the event. For example, you could run teasers on social media, hold company-wide contests, or set up pre-event challenges, like a team step challenge.

Phase 4: Measuring Success and Following Up

Step 11: Gauging Event Impact

Like with any event, it's good to conduct a postmortem to understand what went well and what you can improve for next year.

During your planning, you identified the metrics to use to measure your event's success. Make sure to follow through on them, tracking attendance, collecting vendor feedback, and gauging employee satisfaction through surveys. You could even send out surveys a week later to see what stuck with employees the most.

Once you've collected all your data, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your health fair. Qualitative answers can help you find areas for improvement going forward. You can also speak with the committee to see how they felt about the planning phase. If there were any gaps or if more emphasis was placed on certain areas than necessary, here's where you identify them.

Afterwards, it's also good to share resources and information related to the topics that the fair covered, so attendees know how they can follow up on pieces that interested them. Based on employee interest, you can also offer ongoing wellness programs and initiatives.

Run a Health Fair That Empowers Employees to Prioritize Wellbeing

An employee health fair is just the start of these wellness awareness efforts. And it should be part of a broader employee wellness program that is implemented consistently throughout the year.

By prioritizing the wellbeing of your employees, you are fostering a positive and thriving work culture that benefits both the individuals and the organization as a whole.

Wellhub can help you run wellness programs that promote employee wellbeing and ultimately drive productivity and employee satisfaction. Speak with a Wellbeing Specialist to see how we can help your workforce thrive!

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[*] Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.