WICHITA, Kan.–The “Clash of Cash” has been won by Meritrust Credit Union here, which defeated Dallas-based Texas Trust Credit Union.
The competition between the two CUs was over which staff could win a fitness challenge over a 19-day period.
Together, the credit unions reported that 130 employees were engaged in the challenge, burning 2.39 million calories and logging an average of 330,935 minutes of activity, or more than 5,500 hours over those 19 days.
Jim Minge, CEO of Texas Trust Credit Union, said he is committed to positively changing the lives of his employees, one step at a time, which is why Texas Trust routinely sponsors competitive fitness challenges to encourage employees to be more active. Minge himself logged 78 hours of activity during which he burned 33,645 calories.
The competition, developed by Sonic Boom Wellness, measured participants’ steps, activity time, distance traveled, and calories burned.
The winning results were based on the amount of time spent on the move throughout the campaign. Meritrust's employees logged an average of 154 active minutes per day compared with Texas Trust's average of 112 minutes a day.
Participating employees from both credit unions used Boomerang activity trackers to monitor their movement. Every active minute, whether it was spent walking, running, dancing, jumping, hiking, or biking, was tracked to determine the results. This activity information was automatically uploaded to individual employees' personal and private portals for daily tracking, as well as monitoring ongoing contest results on live leaderboards. Employees earned Sonic Status points, which can be used to purchase merchandise, such as fitness gear, clothing, electronics, and more.
Employees of the two credit unions were active for a total of 330,935 minutes, or more than 5,500 hours, during the 19-day contest.
Sonic Boom, a provider of corporate wellness software solutions, developed the competition between Meritrust and Texas Trust as a way to encourage more employees to increase their activity levels, which is the main wellness goal of both credit unions. As the winning credit union, Meritrust earned bragging rights, while the losing credit union's CEO, Jim Minge, dyed his hair Meritrust red and wore Meritrust logoed apparel to work.
Since initiating the Sonic Boom wellness program, Texas Trust reported it has seen a big jump in wellness participation over the previous year. The Clash of the Cash promotion was its first external wellness competition, which created a new level of engagement for employees and set the stage for exciting events to come.