This summer, Live Well Be Well and Healthy Workforce promoted the Go KP Summer Games Team Challenge which encouraged teams of at least four to move more together. For the first time, we had three MAS teams place nationally at #1 and one team place #2! The top five MAS teams were recognized in the region with onsite Summer Games Ceremonies complete with music from the Olympics to present their medals. In addition, teams were treated to a healthy lunch and shared some of their winning secrets with the Live Well Be Well and Healthy Workforce teams. See the winning team photos below and learn about how the top MAS teams did it!
1st Place: Rock the Plank (Regional Office)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Abby | Chough (Team Captain) |
| Beth | Audet |
| Charles | Harriman |
| Iris | Von Palubitzki |
| Pam | Ferraro |
1st Place: NOVA Kaizen (mixed NOVA Service Area team)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Scott | Segal (Team Captain) |
| Angela | Lyles |
| Kathy | Haslam |
| Denise | Anthony |
1st Place: Team Daffodil (Towson)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Brenda | Hinberg (Team Captain) |
| Jean | Smink |
| Lakisha | Davis |
| Tiana | Smith |
| Tyler | Hora |
2nd Place: Marlow Walkers (Marlow Heights)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Miriam | Wood (Team Captain) |
| Constance | Banks |
| Lisa | Denise |
| Robin | Taylor |
| Valencia | Ferguson |
| Vicki | Hilton |
3rd Place: Track and The City (Garrett Building A)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Dianca | Kelly (Team Captain) |
| Darcelle | Frazier |
| Angela | Marshall |
| Melissa | Phommaseng |
| Mya | Ransom |
4th Place: DMX (Garrett Building A)
| First Name | Last Name |
| Taj | Brown (Team Captain) |
| Alexia | Brodber |
| Franklin | Warner |
| Samira | Pasha |
| Sumerian | Ali |
5th Place: Our Long National Nightmare (Regional Office)
| First Name | Last Name |
| James | Geist (Team Captain) |
| Alena | Vidlakova |
| Carol | Wright |
| Fatmata | Sillah |
| Isabel | Lamothe |
| Jessica | Galindo |
| Nelly | Alarcon |
Winning Secrets
To start, all winning team captains did some ‘scouting’ to identify individuals that were committed to consistent, active participation, and enthusiastic about the opportunity to be part of a top performing team. Iris, team member of the one of the top KPMAS and national teams, Rock the Plank, had a motto of “stop making excuses and just do it”. This team was a mixed group of employees that work remotely at least two days per week with 4 of the team members being 100% remote.
In addition to being more active, the teams reported that the challenge brought them closer together. Some teams were friends to start with while others had not met until the day of the ceremony. Either way, they exchanged personal phone numbers and developed new relationships with each other to further support the social aspect of the challenge to foster a workplace culture of health. Track and the City invited other competing teams to join their daily walks around Garrett. They also create their own challenges regularly such as “no eating out challenges” and “abs challenges” to keep themselves motivated all year long. Regional Office’s Our Long National Nightmare participates in an annual walk from Germantown Metro Station to Regional Office, arriving at work about 6 a.m.! Two team members on Rock the Plank team have lost 50 pounds each as a result of their ongoing participation in GoKP challenges over multiple years!
Keeping each other motivated was a critical factor to their success – all teams implemented consistent reminders to ensure that their teammates were logging their activity daily. Examples of these techniques included using the chat feature through the Go KP platform, Outlook and Skype for quick reminders, and walking together as a team. They also took advantage of the bonus points to boost their overall team scores, in which all the teams believed the bonus points were very doable and simple to implement.
During the ceremony, teams were asked to give their advice to teams seeking to be on top next year. The winning teams shared the following ‘words of wisdom’:
- Be consistent – people tend to start and stop when trying to increase activity, but it’s important to make your daily lives as active as possible. Be intentional about scheduling activity into your day just like everything else.
- If you see a teammate is not logging activity, reach out to encourage and offer support. It’s critical to hold each teammate accountable.
- Take advantage of the challenge – it’s a win-win – the challenge makes it fun to be active as a team and you get added benefits for participating by relieving stress and connecting in a unique way with your colleagues.
- Join all challenges that are available to you as an employee, as well as creating your own and inviting team members on Go KP.
- Have a realistic goal but make it a s stretch yourself and your team. You could set a goal to be a #1 team or to do a little bit better than last year – whatever works for the group!
- Use the device connection feature to connect your FitBit to the platform so you don’t have to remember to log.
