Employee Engagement: Training Employees for Marathon

Every year there are tons of marathon races that happen in Pune, India. Amdocs has partnered with FICCI to let its employees participate in this race in different format, 3K 5K, 10K, 21K. 

When Amdocs started this initiative the first time, entire race fee was sponsored by Amdocs, this did not turn out to be a good idea, because once registration done, lot of employees even forgot to show up on the race day, as there was nothing at stake!

This year when I was handed over this employee engagement project, we had to increase stakes for employees and running should not be a one day event. Having worked closely with IT employees in different business roles, I knew how we get all psyched up when we hear about the race, and some of us, participate due to peer pressure from social media / other employees boasting in cafeterias :). So getting registrations was never an issue. We always got our required registration target met in first few days. Then during the race day, there is not even 50% turn around. Some would be too busy with office commitments, some would be too lazy to leave bed but mostly people complained, they are not ready for race or lack of preparation and thus fear of not being able to complete or compete.

During a informal conversation, one of my colleagues mentioned that she has registered for 5 K but she is not sure if she will be able to run', this was the first time she registered for a Marathon but fear that she will not able to complete that, as she is not active physically and not sure where and how to start.

That gave me an idea, 'what if we train these employees To get into Running, not just for Marathon, but beyond.

I found a dedicated and experienced trainer, he is popular in running circuit as 'Captain Gourav', he is an IT professional too. So not only he could coach employees on everything about Running, from Theory to on-field practice, but also understand common fitness concerns that IT professionals face day to day. We hired him for 4 in-office theory sessions, that covered topics like Why, How, and Whats of Running, and answered common queries regarding Running. Like Good Pains vs Bad Pains, What to/ not to eat, Stance of running, Techniques for injury free running etc. These sessions also gave employees chance to ask their personal concerns regarding running.

There were also 6 outdoor run sessions on Saturday mornings, to let runners put theory to practice. Out door sessions taught about Pre / Post run stretches, core strengthening exercises, and practice runs to correct posture immediately on field. He had a big team of volunteers, they all personally oversaw and guided running techniques of participants.

This training was really useful for first timers, for people who were afraid to take up running, for novice runners, who wanted to set the bar higher by increasing the distance. For runners, who were facing pain earlier due to wrong running stance. We received lot of positive feedback:

Jayanthi said "Hi Gaurav and team, Garima for the wonderful training and for instilling confidence that we could do it. I did manage to complete my first ever Half Marathon."

Manish said "I would like to say a Big Thank you to Garima for handling and arranging amazing training session, both theory and Practical. Also taking care of everything for us single handedly. Thank you so much for all your effort / help for our Health"

Personally for myself, Its has been a great learning and motivating experience to see employees achieving their targets, finishing their runs, enjoying their runs and wanting to keep running in future too. It gave me immense satisfaction to see that we as an company did move one step further in achieving the aim of bringing Health and Happiness in our employees lifestyle. Thank you Amdocs for giving me the opportunity to make it happen.