Employers have struggled to adjust to these shifts and make fitness and wellness activities available to these rapidly-growing employee populations.

But virtual fitness can play a key role in helping employers foster healthy behaviors among these hard to reach employee groups, in addition to other employees who choose not to participate in corporate fitness because they find current offerings inconvenient, irrelevant or have privacy concerns.

Virtual fitness gives employees the opportunity to stream fitness classes, workout plans and assessments across mobile and web-based applications at a time and place that is convenient for them. Virtual fitness provides what many of today's employees say corporate wellness initiatives are lacking: convenience, customization, support and information. Here's how:

Reach more employees without breaking the bank

Recent research found that among employees who do not participate in their company's wellness programs, 53 percent do not participate because it is inconvenient or they lack support from their employer. Virtual fitness makes it convenient for anyone and everyone to exercise, regardless of their location, fitness level or access to a facility. This may include workers who are remote, travel often, work an irregular schedule or are otherwise unable to take advantage of any onsite offerings.

Some employees opt out of traditional corporate fitness offerings for privacy reasons. With virtual fitness, employees can not only access fitness content on their own time, but also where they are most comfortable. This may be at home, or at the corporate fitness center during non-peak hours. Also, virtual fitness allows employers to scale wellness offerings to include an employee's family members, giving them the opportunity to take classes together on their own time—a major point of convenience for many employees.

Virtual fitness provides another touch point to engage employees in their health, connecting them through wellness activities and making them truly feel like part of the company — no matter where they are located.

Keep fitness fresh throughout the year

With virtual fitness, employees can completely customize and structure their experience, accessing regularly updated and rotated classes and assessments that will help them achieve their personal fitness goals. Research has found that the primary reason why employees do not participate in their company's wellness program is lack of information. Virtual fitness literally puts information at employees' fingertips, giving them endless options for both self-directed learning and structured support from fitness professionals teaching the classes.

Variety is key to any virtual fitness experience, and helps employees maintain interest and motivation to fit fitness into their day. Typically, that means offering something for everyone, including classes like yoga, Pilates, spin, dance, step classes, kickboxing, sculpting, kinetics, "office breaks" and other time-saving classes. Employees appreciate being able to constantly switch things up and adjust plans to keep their fitness experience fresh and challenging.

Virtual fitness can help employers account for the evolving needs and changes among today's workforce — enabling them to both scale and personalize their fitness offerings, and deliver on what employees want and expect out of their employer's wellness experience: convenience, customization, support and flexibility.