Written by:
LINDSAY WAHLO
Lindsay can be reached at lindsay@apexptwellness.com.
Work Hard, Play Hard
Well, at Apex we truly emulate that and are proud of it!
As a small business, all of our employees wear multiple hats at some point or another. A quick example of that is this blog you are currently reading! None of the employees at Apex had writer or journalist on their resume nor did they probably expect to write an article every month or so to be published for the public audience. But they do it and what’s even more awesome is there never seems to be much kickback from any of the employees when asked to go above and beyond their ‘typical’ job duties! In return, our company rewards the hard work that’s put into not only the normal job duties, but all the other tasks being accomplished that can sometimes feel unnoticed.
By now you might be asking yourself what we do to have fun with our team at work or you quite possibly are already familiar with the annual event Apex graciously treats all employees to—The Fun Day! Such a creative name, right?
In October of 2020 Apex will turn 12 years old and this annual employee event has been happening for 10 of those 12 years. I think that I can confidently say that all Apex staff members look forward to this day every year! On this day, all clinic locations are closed and an entire day of fun is planned. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures from past years’ Fun Days on our social media pages, but some of the activities over the years have included: lake days, Apex Olympics, scavenger hunts at local parks, pedicures & yoga, bus trips to our remote locations (LaMoure & Jamestown) to experience those towns, and most recently, ax throwing! Since the annual Fun Day is during the summer months, we like to take advantage and enjoy the nice weather outdoors, but don’t let that fool you because we are notorious for planning outdoor activities and then the day ends up being rainy. Safe to say the rain never ruins our fun and luckily the past few years we’ve seemed to break that bad streak and have been able to enjoy the sunshine. Anyways, back to fun.
The most important part of the Fun Day is bringing the entire staff together and allowing everyone to get to know one another better and feel appreciated and reward them for their hard work throughout the year! The ‘fun’ comes easily with such a fantastic group of people that truly just like to have a good time with one another. In fact, the Fun Day usually continues into the evening hours and the employees bring their families to either Brooke or Kameron’s home for a grill out, yard games and more good conversation.
This part of the event has sure changed over the years as the adults are almost outnumbered by children! Since Apex is such a family orientated business, it’s no surprise this after/optional event seems to be just as fun as the Fun Day itself.
Another way we bring fun into the workplace is by special dress-up days or weeks. Sometimes these days/weeks are to raise money for a charity event and sometimes they are truly just to lighten up the mood and bring some fun to not only our employees but our patients! Here again, you may have seen some of the pictures on our social media pages from these days in the past and I must say, we have some creative and outgoing staff members. It’s always impressive to see what everyone comes up with and how they always end up going above and beyond expectations. Another way we have fun in friendly competitions! If you want to get a group of people motivated, just put a spin onto something and then turn it into a competition. Boy, are there some competitive employees at Apex!
One of our friendly competitions earlier this year was a compliance challenge that had our entire clinic split into teams. Each team had to complete different exercises for cancellations on the schedule. These types of challenges, although competitive, are always well-liked by our staff because they add some fun banter into our days as we cheer everyone on.
There are many, many ways to keep the workplace fun and these are just a few ways we do just that at Apex! If fun becomes part of the culture at work, the hopes are that employees will be happier and look forward to coming to work each day! Now that you’ve hung with me and read through all of this, I challenge you to find one way to add a little fun into your workplace—even if that’s your home since that is a common office space these days.
We are a private practice outpatient physical therapy clinic offer high quality care with a personal touch. We believe that every patient should receive the quality care needed to help them prevent or rehabilitate their injuries or illnesses.
