Organizational Wellness

How To Host a Hydration Challenge for Employees

Last Updated Nov 4, 2024

Time to read: 5 minutes

Is your company’s workforce hydrated enough to perform optimally in their roles?

It's surprisingly easy to forget about hydration during a buys work day. In fact, around 75% of U.S. adults — including employees in the workforce — suffer from chronic dehydration, according to the National Library of Medicine.

And what does that mean for your company?

Decreased cognitive performance, fatigue, headaches, and reduced productivity for a majority of staff members.

As an HR leader, you can turn things around and champion water drinking by hosting a hydration challenge at work. Discover why this is a valuable move and how to organize one.

Why Hydration Matters at Work

There are many advantages an organization can get from keeping its workforce hydrated, including:

Enhanced Performance

Hydrated workers are more likely to be engaged at work and consequently be more productive, according to the National Library of Medicine. After all, proper hydration plays a role in maintaining cognitive functions such as concentration, memory, and alertness — which can improve an employee’s productivity and efficiency.

For workers engaged in physical labor, hydration can enhance their performance by reducing fatigue, muscle cramps, and dizziness, which could otherwise compromise physical capacity and productivity.

Improved Health and Wellbeing

Drinking enough water is linked to improved heart function, sleep quality, and mood. It can also reduce the risk of Type II diabetes, according to a study by Sage Journals. To that end, healthy workers are less likely to:

Ask for sick leave
Have health-related performance issues
Be absent because of medical problems
Have higher productivity

Boosted Morale and Mood

Getting dehydrated can induce irritability, anxiety, headaches, fatigue, and lethargy, according to Harvard Health Publishing. So, how can this impact employees in your organization?

These symptoms compromise cognitive function and reduce employees' focus, alertness, and efficiency. Your workforce might then become less capable of handling its job, interfering with its morale and mood.

Drinking enough water can prevent employees from developing dehydration symptoms, leading to a more energetic workforce.

Four Common Types of Water Challenges

HR representatives often host hydration challenges in one of four formats:

Team-based Challenge

This format involves grouping employees into teams to collectively track and improve their water intake, foster teamwork, and encourage friendly competition.

As the HR leader, you’ll set a collective hydration goal, track each team’s progress, and offer prizes for teams that meet or exceed their goals. A team-based challenge is ideal if you’re looking to create a team spirit besides improving employees' hydration, health, and wellbeing.

Individual-based Challenge

Individual challenges encourage employees to improve hydration habits independently. Your role as the HR representative is to set the target goal, provide a tracking method, and offer incentives for people who meet or exceed the target.

Competition-based Challenge

You can turn a team-based or an individual-based challenge into a competition by encouraging employees or teams to try and achieve the highest water intake over a set period. The competition aspect adds an element of excitement and accountability to the hydration challenge.

Buddy system Challenge

Alternatively, you can pair employees as hydration buddies and take advantage of social support and accountability to encourage people to drink water in your organization. Members of each pair remind and motivate each other to drink water throughout the day. You then track results and reward the best pair.

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How To Hold a Work Hydration Challenge (Step by Step)

Holding a water drinking challenge at work involves several steps — but it’s how you execute each phase that can help you be successful.

Step 1: Define the Goal of the Hydration Challenge

The objective of increasing water intake in an organization might include:

Increasing productivity through improved cognitive performance
Combating dehydration-related issues such as fatigue or headaches
Promoting a wellness culture to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to employees’ wellbeing

Step 2: Select the Challenge Format

Once you clarify the objective of the hydration challenge, pick a format that best suits your workplace culture and the company’s goals. Options include a team-based, individual-based, buddy system, or competition-based challenge.

Step 3: Pick the Challenge Duration

Common duration includes one week, one month, or even quarterly.

Step 4: Create a Tracking System

Select a method for employees to log their water intake. This could be a digital app that syncs with smart bottles or cups, a physical logbook, or a shared spreadsheet.

Step 5: Plan Incentives and Rewards

Pick incentives to motivate participation. Options include extra time off, gift cards, or wellness-related products.

Step 6: Promote the Hydration Challenge

To generate interest in the water challenge at work, you can create emails and posters and communicate via the company’s intranet. Use engaging graphics and clear messages to explain the challenge details.

Step 7: Host a Kickoff Event

Introduce the challenge, explain the rules, and get the employees excited. You can host a virtual meeting, an in-person gathering, or a combination of the two.

Step 8: Ensure Easy Access to Water

Next, set up hydration stations with water bottles, flavored water options, and reminders to drink. For remote workers, you can offer reusable water bottles to reduce the need for frequent refills from various sources whenever they want a drink.

Step 9: Monitor Progress

Regularly check your tracking system to assess participation and address any issues that arise.

Step 10: Incentivize Participation

Recognize and celebrate individual and team milestones throughout the challenge and share the achievements in company communications.

Step 11: Close the Event

You can organize a closing event to celebrate the challenge's completion. Announce winners, distribute prizes, and share success stories.

Go Beyond Hydration Challenges at Work with Employee Wellbeing

Organizing water-drinking challenges at work can boost employees' cognitive skills to improve productivity, performance, and efficiency. This proactive approach not only caters to employee wellbeing — it can also enrich workplace culture.

Wellhub is a great program option for HR professionals seeking to integrate hydration wellness into their organization’s wellbeing strategy. With our wellness program, you can organize and run customizable challenges to keep your team engaged, motivated, and healthy.

Talk to a Wellhub Wellbeing Specialist to explore tailored solutions for a healthier, more productive workforce.

Company healthcare costs drop by up to 35% with Wellhub! (* Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.) Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist to see how we can help reduce your healthcare spending!