Lying in Wellness program

Question

Our company has a wellness contest to promote healthy lifestyle and well being. The contest is focused around how much physical activity you perform. (For example, 1 mile run = 10 points). The top 3 individuals with the most points at the end of the contest get a nice cash prize. 1st place gets a whopping $3000.

The person who organized this contest has left the company, and I was put in charge.

While this contest has good intentions, the way it was setup is beyond stupid. Essentially, you can put whatever you want in the system, and there's no way to verify or check if you're uploading accurate information. I could put that I climbed Mt Everest today, but don't need to provide any proof, and I'll instantly shoot to the top of the leaderboard.

Because this is a huge cash prize, people are getting really into it. Tempers are flaring now as some people are (understandably) claiming that other individuals are cheating. Some examples are:

• A very obese man (he says he is 415 lbs) has claimed to run a marathon with a pace of 5:18 a mile.
• An individual who worked an 8 hour day on Monday claimed to have run for 16 hours on that same day (and then repeated this feat on Tuesday and Thursday of the same week).
• A woman who is probably 5'0" and thin as a rail (I'm guessing no more than 100 lbs) claimed to have bench pressed 360 lbs.
• A man in his early 70s claimed to have finished 2 Ironman Triatholons in a 3 day period

Now, I'm no fitness buff and I suppose that all of these are conceivably possible. But people are crying BS on these results and I tend to agree with them. Given the large cash prize, things are getting really heated. I really don't want to deal with this, but unfortunately I have to because I've been put in charge.

Is it better to just award these individuals with far-fetched data and deal with everybody else getting mad at me? Or is it better to confront these individuals or disqualify them for clearly cheating? How can I approach this situation professionally?

EDIT

Thanks all for the feedback. Just wanted to give a quick update.

I decided to disqualify the individuals I was sure were cheating, and so they didn't win any money. For better or for worse, they've all provided irrefutable evidence to me that they were telling the truth all along. Now my boss has enrolled me in sensitivity training and I'm on disciplinary probation.

Well, lesson learned, I guess...

Answer 1

Obviously not everyone is taking the contest seriously because it is so open to abuse.

Hell if I was the obese guy and you had a "one size fits all" program why would I take it seriously? At 415 pounds I'm probably not going to run a marathon so how can I compete with the guy who can? At 5 foot and 100 pounds she probably isn't going to benchpress as much as someone else.

Sounds like the program/competition is a joke and people are treating it that way. The best solution would be to try to shut down the program - perhaps use the planned prize money for other related things (subsidized membership at a local gym or similar)

Answer 2

Is it better to just award these individuals with far-fetched data and deal with everybody else getting mad at me?

No, because then the biggest liar wins. Two wrongs (your predecessor not setting the competition right, and the employees lying) does not make a right.

Or is it better to confront these individuals or disqualify them for clearly cheating?

Unless you have loads of spare time to enter into every sort of quibbles that will arise, do not do it. Given the way people have behaved, this will soon change shape from who can lie the most to who can push the boundaries the most.

How can I approach this situation professionally?

First of all, measure the blast radius. How big is your organization? How many employees have participated in good faith? How many people are simply boasting? any kind of raw numbers will help.

Next, depending on this blast radius, you need to decide whether you want to save the program, or kill it.

---

You should try saving this program only if

(a) you have small number of employees - everybody knows everybody, so you try to award to the best guy and everybody just honestly accepts it

(b) the number of instances of people lying are low enough, that you can still institute a mechanism for people to prove they did it. This could be certificates from the gym, marathon organizers, or their smart watch history

(c) the employees who have participated in good faith are a very significant number, and would feel completely dejected if you were to cancel this event - you should try changing the rules - such as stopping new entries and instituting a jury to give the award in this case.

Do think of an appropriate communication for either of these scenario.

---

If you have decided to shut it down completely, think of what all you may want to do with that extra amount of money. This could be setting up a couple of treadmills, table tennis, or some other office gratification. Try to make it group based than individual based.

Use the childish behavior of the employees against them, to cancel the event. Use the language that you use in the question, and explain the truth to everyone why you are cancelling it. As others have suggested, check with HR first. Use a communication along the lines of

Dear all,

As you all are aware, our company had started a wellness contest to promote healthy lifestyle and well being. The focus of the contest was on how much physical activity you perform. We were expecting this to be a fun way of promoting health awareness among all.

Unfortunately, while this contest had good intentions, we have observed increased instances of some people putting up unverifiable and unrealistic claims, which has created an environment of mistrust and disbelief.

Hence, We have decided to shut the program with immediate effect. In recompense, we have decided to ##insert your options here##.

Answer 3

Forget the competition. Corporate environments are competitive enough without pitting people who are already in great shape against people who could actually stand to benefit. The person who organized it is gone and you’re left with a sizable budget to promote health and wellness in the workplace. Use it how you see fit.

One idea that comes to mind is to organize a series of classes and workshops that promote different aspects of wellness. You could alternate between exercise, stress reduction techniques, lifestyle habits, etc.

Answer 4

The person who organized this contest has left the company, and I was put in charge.

Step 1 Gather all the data showing the flaws in the program.

Step 2 Arrange a meeting with the manager that assigned you this task.

Step 3 Present data and suggest that management needs to relieve you of oversight of this contest.

The program as you describe it massively flawed. It was poorly designed to prevent cheating, it was poorly designed which resulted in a miss-match between how points were assigned and the goals of a wellness program.

Management must have approved this contest. They must have agreed to spend money and resources on this project. Now with the flaws fully exposed, management needs to come up with an exit plan.

Because somebody approved the contest, and then assigned you the task when the original organizer left, they need to be the one that develops the exit strategy and handles the fallout.

Designing a fair way to end the program and distribute the money isn't your responsibility. Management has to know that sometimes when people leave the company their pet projects end with them.

Answer 5

You shouldn't kick anyone out of the program without running it past your supervisor or HR first.

That said, if there are people cheating that blatantly there are probably more cheating by claiming plausible levels of activity while sitting on the couch all day. As broken as it's become, my recommendation would be to try and shut it down completely or to award the prize randomly among all participants.

Answer 6

1. Document the complaints
2. Speak with your manager and HR about the cheating
3. Propose that the competition gets shut down or that you get relieved of this duty
4. Propose a plan for spending the money in a health-conscious way

Try to get HR to send the shut down notice.

If this burden falls on you then make sure to avoid expressing your feelings:

Thank you to everyone for your participation but we are sorry to announce that the Wellness program is being shut down effective immediately. We have seen some really excellent participation rates but unfortunately there have been numerous claims that participation has been recorded unfairly and upon further review we have decided to cease this program.

As we continue encouraging healthy lifestyles both in and out of the office we would like to announce that the prize money will be used to fund x, y, and z.

Thank you

Answer 7

first. like others said. I suggest cancelling this competition. Give people the reasons why. Be polite and realize that you are messing with a prize pool that can change someones life if used well. You are going to get flack for doing this. no matter what. Right now it's just a matter of getting more people to understand than annoyed.

As you stated it's way to easy to cheat.Mention this but stress that you're not saying anyone is actually cheating. just that the option exists, and that it wouldn't be fair to the winner to have that hanging over them.

Second. there is no reason competition should be avoided altogether. I suggest doing something straight forward. Like organizing a run. It can be a one off, or yearly event. It's live ,so cheating is difficult, and almost everyone can run a 5k with some training. and that was the goal in the first place. get people exercising.

However. i would suggest asking for ideas from those working at your company. They know the place and people better than we do. and it can get their minds off of missing out, and on to problem solving.

third. most importantly. break up those prizes that is just too big a prize with too high a risk to keep the competition healthy. Spread them out and gear the prizes towards participation rather than winning.

Only you know the exact size of your company and the available prize pool. But just as an example. here's how the prizes for the 5k at my company are distributed. prizes won are cumulative.

• finish withing the time limits get €50
• run a personal record. get €75
• place between 1st and 8th. get between €50 and €5

setting up an event in this manner gives people a reason to join, and to improve year over year. Since, even if you're dead last, if you're faster than last year. You walk home with 125 bucks. Not too shabby for a bit of exercise.

Answer 8

Yes, these wellness competitions are usually unbelievable. My company ultimately ditched the prize aspect and went with a yearly survey that you fill out and get $100 dollars HSA credit. At my company we had a competition with a pedometer. A really obese individual claimed to have walked nearly 2/3 of the USA when you map out the steps to miles in a period of a month. They offered cash prize so everyone joined in right away and started putting in numbers racking in the 1000s. I don't see anyone actually walking around. Everyone got upset and some claimed cheating and I think the company ditched it more so not to hear complaints anymore.

From what I understand the company get a huge tax discount by depositing into the HSA account or giving cash prizes for health reasons so it's more helpful for them than you. It's better to pay $3,000 to write off in taxes than it is to pay a full tax amount or in the case of tax brackets, you might pay lesser overall going under a range. With a cash prize though, other than anger, it helps the company more in terms of tax breaks. So I doubt your company will stop it entirely. But yes, it's ridiculous and unfortunately you can't do anything unless there's a clause to verify their claims. Best thing to do is to document the claim and take it to the HR folks.

Answer 9

You could add a simple "proof" section to whatever form you're using. Something like a screenshot of their runkeeper app, a before/after image of them on a scale to show weight loss, etc. I know its still a system that's easy to cheat, but it'll prevent some people from doing the easy entry at the end of their day of their afternoon marathon...

I'd also suggest splitting up the prizes to something less extreme. Instead of maybe 5k (for example) to the top 3 people, split the money 10 ways and give 500 to each. That's enough for a lot of gym memberships for a year, etc.

Giving people more chances to win makes the competition more fun, and less likely to cheat to get into that 'elite' set of 3 who'll almost always win.

Answer 10

For reasons already covered by many other answers, this competition needs to be shut down*. It's obviously not achieving what it's meant to achieve, and it's causing bad feeling. Welcome to Goodhart's Law in action.

Beyond that, even if you could ensure that everybody was playing fair... it's still a terrible idea. Each person has their own health needs, and what's good for one person's health may be very bad for another. Making it a competition inevitably pushes people into doing things that are unhealthy for them.

However, accusing people of lying without cast-iron evidence rarely goes down well, even if the accusation is correct. Trying to single out individual liars is a recipe for disaster. It's quite possible that the more obvious cheats are responding to less-obvious cheating, and felt that the only way they could even the playing field was by cheating themselves, in which case targeting them is going to make things even worse.

tldr: it's bad that people are cheating, but the whole idea is such a mess that rather than trying to punish the guilty it's probably better to go down the "let us never speak of this again" route.

So I wanted to offer a script that avoids that:

Hi everybody, I'm writing to let you know that the office exercise competition has been cancelled. It's become clear that we cannot run this competition in a way that is fair to everybody involved while still promoting good health.

Instead, we would like your suggestions on how the money committed to this competition could be spent to promote a healthy workplace for all employees. Please send your suggestions to ...

*Check with legal first to ensure there isn't a legal obligation for you to go through with this mess, and then run things by your manager, but it really needs to be shut down.

Answer 11

I'd suggest proposing to change the prize to a raffle-style drawing, where entries are earned by going to health related classes that you set up, i.e. invite a yoga instructor, or setup a cycling class, etc. For employees - that way you are actually helping employees get healthier, and can still offer a prize, however there will be other employees present so people have a rough idea of who participated and how much

Answer 12

This answer may not fly at a huge company that is risk diverse but if my employees did this I would send out a simple email. And this is what SHOULD be done in a workplace since the company is trying to promote wellness and offering something that is being abused. I think the answers you got here are a bit of a joke because if people were lying and scamming the company and it wasn't fitness related... people would have their arms in there air. As it stands you get politically-right answers because people think this is sensitive. Maybe it is but it sends a terrible message on the expectations you have for your employees and how they will represent your business. To me the 425 pound guy would literally lie about anything if he makes up that crap. You want to have a company that thinks it's OK to lie? Shutting down the contest is exactly what the liars want. They are not only liars but they would rather see no one get it then not them.

I know that we have a wellness contest. It seems that many of you are doing a great job and have taken this serious. However, some have put in some results that seem highly suspect.

I am disappointed in any staff member that has lied on this. I have expectations that our staff would not try to defraud the company and other employees. Can each of you please review your activity logs.
If there is anything that is out of the normal realm for your lifestyle or anything that cannot be verified, please delete your activities and exit the competition.

Anyone who claims activities that seem to be fraudulent will be reviewed fully.

thanks - Management

Answer 13

I’m offering an alternative answer for completeness, because I think some of the other answers are better.

But another way might be …

“There have been accusations that people are cheating in the wellness program. Now, we have no proof of cheating, but to avoid future arguments, we are going to start requiring proof of accomplishments. And we will be considering changes in the program to better achieve its goals and improve fairness.”

Answer 14

Silently disqualify the obvious cheaters. Do your due diligence with the eventual leaders. You may still end up awarding the best liar but that risk existed either way irrespective of how poorly accounted this contest is. Award is at the discretion of the company, who has indirectly elected you to be its agent. Use this discretion.

Answer 15

The people who are cheating know what they are doing. It would be unfair to anyone who legitimately participated in the wellness program to award the price to a obvious cheat, but also unfair if you cancel the program and cash prize altogether.

I would recommend you send out a general email and wipe any contested records off the board. The person is then free to re-contest the record, but will need to provide proof. In this case, someone contests the Obese mans marathon. He counter contests. You ask him to run a marathon and record it. Most people trying to be cheeky and beat the system will simple stop. If they are attempt to be dishonest then you can simple confront them about how inappropriate their behavior is, after all it is a wellness program.