Motion Connected’s 2026 Move More Step Challenge brought together organizations and their employees for a month-long workplace wellness challenge centered around one goal: move more.
The annual challenge, hosted during the American Heart Association’s Move More Month, continues to demonstrate how workplace wellness initiatives can strengthen employee engagement while making healthy habits more accessible and sustainable.
The Step Challenge Structure
The Move More Challenge is a four-week company-vs-company workplace step challenge designed to encourage daily movement through friendly competition.
Organizations compete based on average daily steps, creating a level playing field for companies of different sizes. Employees participate individually while contributing to their organization’s overall performance.
The format allows organizations to integrate wellness into the workday in simple, achievable ways. Employees often incorporate movement through walking meetings, lunch-break walks, department step goals, and other everyday activities throughout the workday. By focusing on consistency rather than intensity, the challenge encourages broad participation across employee groups and activity levels, making workplace wellness feel more approachable and sustainable.
2026 Move More Results
- 96 participating organizations
- 6,806 participants
- Nearly 1.6 billion total steps logged
- Approximately 30 trips around the Earth
The challenge maintained steady engagement throughout the month as employees tracked progress, monitored leaderboards, and participated in organization-wide wellness efforts.
Workplace Engagement Through Shared Goals
One of the key outcomes of the Move More Challenge is the way it creates visible, day-to-day engagement across organizations.
Because the challenge is team-based, employees are consistently interacting around a shared goal. Leaderboards, daily progress tracking, and friendly competition help keep participation high while encouraging accountability and collaboration across teams.
The challenge format also works well across remote, hybrid, and in-office environments, giving organizations a flexible way to include employees regardless of workplace structure.
For many organizations, the challenge becomes more than a wellness initiative, it becomes an ongoing point of connection throughout the workday.
Top-Performing Organizations
Several organizations stood out during the 2026 challenge for their strong participation and performance throughout the month.
The 3 top-performing organizations include:
- NSABP
- Medina County Health Department
- YMCA of the Fox Cities
Their results highlighted the impact that consistent participation and team engagement can have during a workplace wellness challenge.
Why Workplace Step Challenges Continue to Work
The continued growth of the Move More Challenge reflects a broader shift in workplace wellness strategy toward programs that are simple, social, and easy to sustain.
Step challenges remove many of the barriers that can limit participation in traditional wellness programs. Employees do not need specialized equipment, gym memberships, or major schedule changes to participate. Instead, movement becomes something employees can naturally incorporate into their existing routines.
This creates a scalable wellness initiative that supports employee engagement, workplace culture, team accountability, wellness participation, and cross-department interaction. At the same time, the competitive element helps maintain momentum throughout the challenge without adding administrative complexity for employers.
The Takeaway
The 2026 Move More Challenge showed how small daily actions can create measurable engagement at scale.
Across 96 organizations, employees collectively turned everyday movement into a shared workplace experience while reinforcing connection, consistency, and participation throughout the month.
As organizations continue looking for practical ways to support employee wellbeing, workplace wellness challenges remain one of the most effective tools for building engagement through simple, accessible habits.
Learn more about Motion Connected’s workplace wellness challenges and how your organization can participate in future Move More initiatives.
