This study investigated how employees perceived corporate fitness programs as benefits, how fitness programs were ranked with other selected employee benefits and if they would be considered in future career opportunities. A questionnaire was given to employees from five companies with and five companies without fitness programs. The 452 Ss were subdivided into the two sub-groups of employees with and without company fitness programs, and high and low adherers to physical activity. Data were analyzed by Chi- Square and proportional differences. Fitness programs were considered to be significantly important benefits; high/low adherers responses were significant. In N rank ordering of eight selected benefits, fitness programs ranked seventh; high/low adherers had significant rankings of fitness programs; employees with and without fitness programs had significant rankings of sick leave time/pay. The N did not consider fitness programs as significant future recruitment tools; there were significant differences from responses of high/low adherers. Some companies did not emphasize fitness programs as important benefits to employees.

Many corporate offices now offer fitness benefits to their employees. Evidence shows that corporate fitness programs are linked to decreased tardiness, absenteeism, and reduced healthcare costs. These programs also help address the growing obesity crisis threatening one in every three American adults. However, many employees do not participate in corporate fitness plans in spite of the convenience many programs offer. Thus, I wished to explore the personality and lifestyle factors that contribute to older (age 25+) employees’ exercise habits, their use of corporate benefits and correlates to the Big Five model of Personality along with other personality measures. I gathered 94 participants aged 25 and above, who work full-time (at least 32+ hours per week).I had my participants report their demographic information and take a survey through Qualtrics and Amazon Mechanical Turk analyzing their exercise habits and use of corporate benefits. Based on my findings, the Big 5 facet that correlated with corporate benefit use the most was immoderation. Other factors that correlated included Externally Controlled Motivation, Autonomous Motivation, and Perceived Competence. Furthermore, participants were able to share tips for how to improve corporate benefit use. The study could have benefitted from a larger sample size and observation-based reporting, however overall it serves as a good indicator of traits that make a person more inclined to participate in exercise programs and poses suggestions for the improvement of said programs.