Here's what usually happens when HR announces a wellness initiative:
An email goes out. A few people respond enthusiastically. Some sign up with a genuine intention. But then life happens—back-to-back meetings, project deadlines, the commute that somehow takes longer than expected—and participation quietly fades.
I know this because I've watched it happen. And because, if we're being honest, most of us have been the person who opened the wellness email, thought "I really should do this," and then... didn't.
Not because we're lazy. Not because we don't care about health.
But because somewhere between the morning standup and the evening tasks, the idea of "fitting in wellness" feels overwhelming.
You will do it. Just... not today.
When India's Workforce Stopped Moving
The numbers tell a story that's hard to ignore.
Loop's Workforce Health Index reveals that 28% of urban professionals never exercise. Not occasionally. Not when schedules allow. Never. Among those who do move, only 37.9% meet the benchmark for adequate activity. That means nearly two-thirds of India's workforce is either completely sedentary or insufficiently active during the years when their bodies are most capable of movement and recovery.
In cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, or Delhi, where an average person spends two to four hours commuting, "wellness" has to compete with dinner, family time, household responsibilities, and the simple need to rest.
The World Health Organization says 1 in 3 adults is insufficiently active, and that inactivity raises the risk of lifestyle diseases by up to 40%. The ICMR found that 41% of Indian adults lead sedentary lives.
But you don't need a statistic to know this. You can feel it in your body at 3 PM when you're on your fifth video call and everything hurts.
The average employee spends 10-12 hours sitting. At a desk. In meetings. On a commute (where you're technically moving, but your body definitely isn't). That's two-thirds of your waking hours not moving.
We’re not lazy, we’re just working in a world that wasn’t designed for movement.
The Real Crisis: Your Most Stressed Employees Are Too Stressed to Move
And it gets worse.
The same data shows that 33.9% of professionals report high stress levels (7 or above on a 10-point scale). The average stress score sits at 5.01—meaning moderate stress has become the everyday reality for India's workforce.
The most cited reason? Work itself. As per the Workforce Health Index survey, nearly 45% of professionals cite workplace demands as their main source of stress, outpacing financial concerns, relationship issues, and health problems combined.
But here's the part most wellness programs miss: movement and stress are deeply connected.
When stress overwhelms, the first casualties are always the habits that could help. Exercise frequency drops. Sleep quality deteriorates. And for many professionals, the gap between knowing what they should do and actually doing it grows wider every day.
Why Most Wellness Programs Fail (And What Actually Works)
Here's the thing about wellness programs: they struggle because they ask people to add something on top of everything else.
Join this yoga class. (But it's at 7 AM, and your day starts early, and it's across town.)
Sign up for this gym membership. (Which you genuinely mean to use, but never quite find the time.)
Track your calories. (Until life gets busy and the app sits unopened.)
The programs that work don't ask you to change your life. They meet you inside the life you already have.
Here's what Loop's data shows works: remote and hybrid workers exercise more than office workers, not because they have gym access, but because they have time control. Without the daily commute, they gain pockets of time for movement that even well-equipped office fitness centers rarely create.
The pattern is clear: movement happens when the environment supports it, not when willpower forces it.
Stepathon does something different: it takes the one thing everyone already knows how to do—walking—and turns it into something your whole company can rally behind.
What Stepathon Actually Is
Stepathon is Loop's workplace walking challenge designed to make wellness simple, social, and surprisingly sticky.
It's not another fitness app people download and forget. It's a time-bound event—typically 2-4 weeks—where teams compete to see who can walk the most. Employees sync their existing step trackers or phone apps, and every step counts toward their team's total.
The format is deliberately simple: walk more, move up the leaderboard, celebrate together.
No special equipment. No training required. No pressure to perform.
How Stepathon Works: Zero Effort for HR, Maximum Impact for Teams
Loop's run over 500 Stepathons across Indian organizations, and with teams that usually skip wellness initiatives. And HR leaders keep saying the same thing: "This is the first one people actually joined."
Here's what happens:
- HR picks a duration (two to four weeks, usually).
- Loop handles everything from registration to communications, including leaderboards, nudges, and all the works.
- Employees sync their step trackers or apps and just... start walking.
- Teams compete. People start checking their progress throughout the day.
At the end, HR gets a full report and ideas for recognition.
Stepathon Makes Walking a Team Sport
The magic isn't the steps. It's what happens during the event and after.
Finance teams that rarely leave their desks start "Walk & Talk Fridays" and keep it going for months.
People who never spoke to anyone outside their immediate team suddenly have inside jokes with the marketing department about who's leading the board (there's an anti-cheat system, by the way, we’ve thought of that).
Someone suggests "let's walk this out" during a tense meeting, and it actually helps. Because movement doesn't just burn calories—it reduces stress scores by 25% when done consistently.
The introverts—and this might be the best part—they love it too. They don't have to make small talk or be in the spotlight. They can walk alone, with their headphones in, and still feel part of something. They log their steps, watch their team's progress climb, and take quiet pride in contributing. No performance required.
By the end, the stairs start to look more inviting. Calls get taken while walking. And wellness stops being the thing you'll do "next time" and becomes the thing you're already doing.
Finally, A Wellness Program That Runs Itself
Let's be honest: running wellness programs takes significant time and effort.
Stepathon takes that burden off your plate.
Loop handles the announcements, the nudges, the progress updates, the leaderboards, the anti-cheat systems, and the data crunching. You focus on celebrating wins, not managing logistics.
The challenge is inclusive. Fair. Data-backed. And because walking doesn't require equipment, training, or a gym membership, participation rates are consistently high—even from teams that usually sit out wellness drives.
One HR leader told us, "I didn't have to send a single reminder. People were motivating each other. I just... watched."
Why It Works: Breaking the Stress-Inactivity Cycle
Stepathon works because it solves the three reasons wellness programs struggle:
Effort: HR doesn't have to plan, track, or chase. Loop does it.
Engagement: People join because it's social, easy, and genuinely fun. The kind where people send updates to the Slack channel, comparing step counts and sharing their walking routes.
Longevity: Habits stick because they're built into the workday, not stacked on top of it.
But more critically, it addresses what the data shows is the real crisis: nearly half of professionals cite workplace demands as their primary stressor, yet only 2.7% are in therapy. Social support—talking to friends and family—is how 46% cope with stress. Stepathon taps into this. It creates organic peer support around movement, turning the workplace itself into the intervention.
Does everyone keep walking forever? Not necessarily. Some people return to their old routines once the event ends.
But enough people keep going that it shifts the culture.
And when even 20-30% of your workforce maintains the habit, you're looking at measurable improvements: lower stress levels, better sleep quality, fewer sick days, and the kind of team cohesion that can't be mandated in an all-hands meeting.
What HR Leaders Say
"What started as a fun step challenge turned into a real culture change. Teams began walking together during breaks and even after office hours."
— HR Head, Applus Idiada
"The on-time delivery and quality were impressive, but what I loved most was watching teams bond throughout the challenge. The motivational strategies through community channels actually worked."
— Parmeshwar Pabba, HR at Velocity Clinical
"I couldn't participate this time, but I'd love to see Stepathon held every quarter to keep the momentum going."
— HR, SatSure
The Thing That Matters Most
The best part about Stepathon isn't the steps or the leaderboards or even the improved engagement scores.
It's the moment when you open your company Slack and people are voluntarily talking about health. Making jokes. Cheering each other on. Comparing routes. Sharing screenshots of their step counts with genuine pride.
It's the realization that wellness doesn't have to be formal and serious.
It can be this: energizing, collaborative, slightly competitive, and exactly what everyone needed.
When 28% of your workforce never exercises and 34% report high stress, and when work pressure is the leading cause of that stress, the solution can't be another isolated wellness perk. It has to be something that weaves into the fabric of how people work, talk, and connect.
The Bigger Picture That Actually Matters
Healthier employees show up with more energy. Teams collaborate better. Sick days drop. Claims data starts to reflect it.
But more than that—and this is the part that's hard to measure but impossible to miss—people feel like their company genuinely cares. Not in a surface-level way. In a "we made something that fits your actual life" way.
When wellness becomes something people want to be part of, not something they're told to do, that's when it starts working.
Here's What You Should Do
If you've read this far and thought "this might actually work for us," you're probably right.
The data is clear: movement matters. It reduces stress by 25%. It breaks the cycle of inactivity that's keeping 62% of India's urban professionals below adequate activity levels. And it works best when it's social, workplace-integrated, and designed for real life—not idealized wellness brochures.
If you've read this far and thought "my team would never," consider this: the most skeptical teams are often the ones who surprise everyone the most. Because Stepathon doesn't ask people to become someone they're not. It just asks them to walk.
Movement is one of the simplest ways to improve wellbeing. Most of us have just built lives that make it hard to fit in.
Stepathon brings it back—right where it belongs, at work.
For employees: easy, inclusive, energizing. A chance to break the stress-inactivity cycle without adding to their overwhelm.
For HR: low-effort, high-impact, proven to work. Finally, a wellness program where you don't have to chase participation.
For organizations: happier people, healthier teams, measurable results. Lower stress, better sleep, stronger collaboration—outcomes that show up in both engagement surveys and claims data.
Book a call with our Stepathon expert and let's talk about how this could work for your team.
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