If you’re interested in wellbeing initiatives, a great place to start is looking at some real-life stats and case studies. We were especially interested to see results shared by Healthia on intercompany physical activity challenges run with brands such as Surge, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Zappi Store. The challenge: The first challenge of its kind in the UK, the Healthia Wellbeing Challenge involved employees from participating companies competing in teams to earn activity points and reward gems for achieving physical activity targets using the motivational gamification and reward platform Healthia. Using the Healthia app, which is available for Android and iPhone devices, the individuals clocked up awards in the form of activity points for completing minutes of moderate or vigorous intensity exercise. The challenge focused on preventative health for employees of any fitness level, and employees tracked their progress using their smartphone or wearable of choice and participated alongside teammates, encouraging peer to peer support and competition. The participants included Sodexo Benefits & Rewards Services, Surge Group, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Zappi Store and Medicash among the twelve participating teams. The incentive: In addition to the team trophy for the most activity points, the challenge had a charity element with Healthia incentivizing individuals to reach their activity goals with a donation of £500 to the winner’s charity of choice. Alzheimer’s Research UK received the charity donation following completion of the challenge. The measurement: For the competition, activity points were awarded based on World Health Organisation and NICE recommendations for physical activity which advise 150 minutes of exercise per week or 20 minutes of moderate intensity exercise every day. (Healthia uses the Quealth ScoreTM, a clinically validated and medically aligned health metric. Each employee is awarded a score out of 100 for each disease risk assessment, 1 being bad, 100 being good. An overall health score is also awarded to give an easy to understand metric that improves as individual disease risk reduces. It is worth noting that Healthia is the only employee wellbeing app to measure intensity of physical activity in casual, moderate to vigorous minutes. It is more inclusive in terms of activity measurement than simply measuring steps.) The results: Nearly 60% of participants achieved the government recommendations of 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate or vigorous activity a week during the challenge. Over half (55%) of participants engaged with the app every day and one in three (33%) redeemed a reward for achieving activity goals. Whilst the male participants achieved higher activity scores overall, the female participants reported better health metrics such as blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose. Key lifestyle metrics indicated that over one in four participating (25.7%) were at risk of raised blood pressure and four in five (78%) were at risk of raised blood glucose levels. 93% of the participating males were reported to be at risk of high blood pressure. The challenge had a positive environmental element with 82 carbon saving journeys made during the month through active travel modes such as the bike (47.6%), walking (50%) and running (2.4%). This equated to a total of 1535kg of CO2 during the month-long challenge. The CEO view: Paul Careless, CEO, Surge Group Plc commented “The welfare of teams is vital at every level to stay focused, work at a sustainable pace and help us to stay on top of our game. The team are an active bunch so watching them step up a gear with the Healthia platform and taking part in the challenge going head to head with other companies really reinforced the importance of motivation. The challenge bought the team together, each day they would compare activity levels and take lunch breaks going for runs, classes or even walking flights of stairs! The competitive aspect and rewards motivated the participating employees to reach their goals and the wider team encouraged them too.” Glenn Rankin, Healthia CEO commented: “It’s not always easy to be active with a growing to-do list but the benefits are endless to both our physical and emotional wellbeing and the health of the business. Challenges are a highly effective way to engage and reward teams towards better health, in and out of the workplace. The rise of digital health technology allows us to monitor, manage, motivate and incentivise wellbeing in a more strategic, accurate and proactive manner than ever before.” Interesting wellbeing stats: Other key findings included: Females averaged 70.48 active minutes per day in comparison to males averaging 123.50 64% of active minutes were casual, 24.7% were moderate and 11.3% were vigorous The group burned 19,764 calories on average per user 17% used a smart phone only and 83% used a wearable such as Garmin (35%), Fitbit (32%), Mapmyfitness (13%) and Strava (3%). Of those completing the health risk assessments (HRAs), diabetes was reported in the overall risk profile 20% completed the sleep coaching programme 40% of participants also completed a solo challenge For more information on Healthia, please visit www.healthia.life Post navigation Cato Syversen on the importance of staff events for engagement NEWS: Directors twice as likely to experience ‘workplace performance anxiety’
