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SURE has joined 1,500 companies from across the world taking part in this year’s Global Corporate Challenge. Five teams from Sure are amongst more than 57,000 who have started a 12 month health and wellbeing programme designed to boost the health and performance of employees.
The first part of the programme, which was started in 2004 in Australia, will see the 35 Sure staff aiming to achieve 10,000 steps every day for 100 days. The steps, which are what the World Health Organisation recommends for a lifestyle to be considered active, are then converted into kilometres and plotted on a map to show how far each team travels.
‘Although the challenge has only just begun, the teams are already showing their competitive nature. Every day people are talking about which of the Sure teams has done the most. It is actually quite difficult to achieve 10,000 steps during the course of an ordinary day in the office without making a concerted effort to be more active,’ said Eddie Saints, chief executive officer of Sure in the Channel Islands.
‘That enthusiasm to reach 10,000 steps every day will invariably reap rewards for every member of the Sure teams which is why we have signed up. The results from previous challenges speak for themselves and our hope is that by encouraging staff to take part that they will become fitter and healthier.’
Results from previous Global Corporate Challenges have revealed that 90% of employees said it had improved their health and wellbeing, 61% reduced their waist measurements with the average weight loss being 9.9lbs and 54% of employees with existing high-risk blood pressure were categorised as low risk by the end.
From a business perspective, 75% of employees reported improvements in morale, a third reported an increase in productivity and 57% said there was an improvement in teamwork.
The challenge comes with an online support programme which provides participants with the chance to create a virtual scale model of themselves and then updates their profile as they input their efforts. Nutrition advice is given with food being converted into the number of equivalent steps required to burn it off.
‘It’s a fascinating programme and one which the have really taken to. It’s already improved internal communication as staff are walking to speak to colleagues rather than using the phone or email and some of our staff are even having meetings stood up and walking around. That increased activity is exactly what we want. Encouraging our staff to be healthy obviously has benefits for the company but more importantly, it has many more advantages for the employees,’ said Mr Saints.
‘Our hope is that the results from this year will mean we can encourage even more Sure employees to take part.’
