Stewart finds a little creativity goes a long way in boosting health & happiness.

Overview

Stewart is a design, engineering, and planning firm that puts just as much care into the wellbeing of their employees as they do their projects. Stewart’s holistic wellness program invests in their employees’ emotional, financial, and physical health. Year-round initiatives cover a range of topics and are heavily themed to reflect their fun culture. They host 401k lunch-n-learns during Money Manager March and coordinate company walks to local breweries during the summer months.

However, Stewart wanted to do something more. They wanted to incorporate an ongoing physical component to their wellness program. Since not everyone can be at the same lunch-n-learn or brewery walk, they were seeking a digital community that would promote the health of all employees, regardless of location. They found MoveSpring’s flexible platform and community-focused experience would allow them to exercise their creative muscle while making fitness an inclusive, company-wide adventure.

Key features used

team leaderboard

Stewart showed their creative colors through a team leaderboard challenge. The challenge was inspired by the Oregon Trail educational computer game created in the 1970s. Stewart’s admins created a detailed, points-based scoring strategy that combined MoveSpring step averages with real life board game-style dice rolls.

Each team was comprised of people from different departments and offices across the country to encourage interaction amongst those that don’t normally work together. The challenge was scored on each team’s daily step average, which encouraged consistent activity from every team member.

Every week, the team’s scores were finalized by Friday at 9am. Those teams that reached a 3,000 daily step average that week were awarded 100 points. 100 bonus points were awarded for each 1,000 steps above the 3,000 step minimum.

Then, every Friday at 11:30am, each office hosted a meeting where scores were announced. Each team was allowed to roll one dice to “determine their fate” on the Oregon Trail. Roll an odd number, you’d face a point penalty for dying of malaria or losing your loyal dog companion to a pack of wolves. Roll an even number? Bonus points for your ox having twin calves or for meeting a friendly family that shares their supplies with you.

At the end of the challenge, teams had a mix of points from the step average scores and their fortuitous dice rolls on the Oregon Trail.

individual target

Some employees felt they were not active enough to participate in the Oregon Trail team challenge in fear of dragging down the team average. To ensure inclusion of all fitness levels, the admins created a “Walk the Talk” yearlong challenge where everyone in the company each tried to reach 2,000,000 steps before year end. Those individuals who achieved the goal were celebrated at the annual company kick-off meeting in January.

push notifications

Admins relied heavily on our custom push notifications feature to send a message to all users to sync their data before 9am on Fridays, when Oregon Trail team scores were finalized. A second notification went out to encourage people to attend the dice roll in their respective conference rooms at 11:30am on Friday to learn the fate of their team.

reporting

Reporting was critical in awarding points each week in the team leaderboard challenge. Reports were easily filtered by team, date, and scores for a quick calculation of points. Additionally, reporting was key in determining who would be highlighted at the company kick-off meeting for reaching the ambitious 2 million step target goal.

Results

The Stewart admins were able to accommodate a wide range of participants between the highly competitive Oregon Trail team challenge and the individual, ongoing 2 million steps challenge.

While the Oregon Trail challenge rewarded teams for high step averages, the dice roll component ensured that any team could pull ahead based on sheer luck, evening out the playing field for all activity levels. The individual, 2 million step target challenge allowed yearlong motivation without the pressure to keep up with a competitive team score.

As a result, nearly 50% of the company participated in the step challenges.

“This challenge is a great thing for our company. When we have lunch-n-learns, it will be at one office location and most people can't physically be there. You're not present with everyone. With the Oregon Trail challenge, it’s our entire company,” explained Stewart admin, Allyce Brown.

She found participants really enjoyed interacting with one another throughout the challenge. As some employees aren’t particularly social at work, the challenge gave them an excuse to meet new people at the office. In fact, some employees even met up with their teams on Friday mornings for a last minute walk to boost their score before the weekly dice roll.

Overall, Stewart saw high participation and positive employee feedback. People all across the company found themselves motivated to move more while having fun as part of an engaging, community adventure.