Elite Parking: one team making a difference

August 20, 2024 in Blog by UHA Health Insurance

UHA client, Elite Parking, shares their experience with their annual Elite Resolution Challenge: an annual well-being challenge to support their employees, clients and more.

In 2022, Elite Parking reached out to UHA’s Work Well℠ team with a challenge, “how do we get our employees excited about well-being and encourage them along the way?”

Workplace Wellness Advisor, Kelii Bandmann collaborated closely with Director of HR, Caroline Ekau. Caroline and her team wanted to positively impact their employees, the community, and ignite the passion to develop long term healthy habits. Through this collaboration, Elite Parking invited a premiere list of clients to challenge their workforce in the inaugural Elite Resolution Challenge.

What did we do?

Armed with their goal of creating long term healthy habits Kelii and Caroline gamified the challenge using the Wellable app, a fitness tracker that helped track all well-being activities of each participant and

team, as they competed for the #1 spot. The Elite Resolution Challenge included activities that encouraged a holistic approach to well-being – social, physical, financial, and environmental well-being just to name a few.

After a successful inaugural well-being challenge, including raving reviews from clients who participated and employees alike, Elite Parking decided to make this an annual well-being challenge available to an ever-growing list of clients.

Connecting the dots on holistic well-being

After Elite Parking returned as a UHA insured client in 2024, the UHA team went above and beyond to support the challenge and created two teams to compete, UHA Move It and UHA No Pressure.

This year’s Elite Resolution Challenge was a six-week step-based challenge featuring 56 teams competing for $5,000 and bragging rights amongst 23 different companies.

Participants could gain additional points by participating in weekly bonus challenges. Bonus challenges included participating in hikes, cooking demos, pickleball, yoga, farming at Mari’s Gardens, Orangetheory Fitness group classes and donating to Make a Wish Hawaii and/or Waikiki Community Center.

UHA’s very own, Deb Leong-Yep recalled, “The most exhilarating and rewarding part of being in the Elite Resolution Challenge were the friendships formed,” she continued, “I enjoyed seeing the patience, grace, understanding and diversity of perspectives you can only see by interacting with other teammates and participants.”

*UHA Team No Pressure participating in the weekly challenges*

Creating a well-being culture

Developing the Elite Resolution Challenge was no easy feat. Director of HR, Caroline Ekau shared her experience collaborating with the UHA Work Well℠ team.

What motivated you to develop the Elite Resolution Challenge? Over the years, we had smaller internal wellness challenges. However, during the pandemic, we wanted to launch a wellness program that would be fun and promote well-being for our employees and clients.

In 2018 Kelii Bandmann, from UHA, introduced me to a new step-based platform called Wellable to try out with my team. It was such a great experience, and it really motivated us to move! So, we decided to use the same platform for the Elite Resolution Challenge but enhanced the experience by adding our own activities.

How did UHA’s Work Well℠ team support you over the years? The UHA Work Well℠ team was really helpful in helping us understand the Wellable platform and provided great feedback and solutions throughout our challenge.

Kelii and the Work Well℠ team supported the health assessments we included in our Resolution Challenge this year. This entailed them taking participant’s weight and blood pressure at the beginning and ending of the challenge. In addition, they did an analysis and provided us helpful information. So thankful for our partnership with the UHA Work Well℠ team!

How did their support make you feel? The UHA Work Well℠ team is amazing! The resources and support they provide from webinars, conferences and newsletters are so helpful to ensure employee well-being.

Why is it important to support employee well-being? Employee well-being benefits the employer and employees by providing a fun and engaging workplace culture. Also, it has positive effects on improved attendance, increased productivity, improved work-life balance and much more!

Aside from the annual Elite Resolution Challenge, what else does Elite Parking do to support employee well-being? Throughout the year we participate in community events that helps us to get some exercise, promote team bonding and support charitable organizations as well. Some examples are Special Olympics Over the Edge, Hawaiian Humane Society Pet Walk, American Heart Walk, and Charity Walk Hawaii to name a few.

What advice would you give to a business just starting with employee well-being programs? The investment to start a corporate well-being program is super important and well worth it! Not only will you have a healthier workforce, but you will also have happy and engaged employees and an amazing work culture!

Related resources

Bring wellness to your workplace.

UHA’s Work Well℠ team is available to support any Hawaii employer, to help your business achieve its wellness goals. Collaborate with the UHA Work Well team.