Business of Well-being

Game Plan: Making Wearable Devices Part of Corporate Wellness Ecosystem

When many modern companies discuss corporate wellness, they really mean wearable devices and apps. It's no secret that fitness tracking gadgets - Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, and others - or, wearable devices that can measure steps and other forms of exercise; food and calories; sleep; and, in some cases, heart rate and more have exploded in popularity.


By 2018, some 13 million wearables will be part of corporate wellness programs, according to ABI Research.1 But, how can a company turn a fitness fad into long-term behavior change? What are the best practices for engaging employees with their health and wearables for the long run? To help find this out - and inform key corporate decision-makers on the process of running a tracker-themed wellness program - Matchup, a technology company designed to make wearable wellness work for everyone through team challenges and community support, partnered with the Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress for a test challenge.


EHBC and Matchup created a four-week step-count challenge. Participants included HR administrators and corporate wellness officers from a variety of companies including households names, such as Google, LinkedIn, the Cleveland Clinic and Chipotle. Each week, participants had a step goal and access to a challenge community board where they could track and encourage each other's progress.


One week, Matchup also gave the option for "head-to-head" challenges, in which individuals compete on a one-on-one basis. During this challenge, users also switched to a new device every week. Together, they started with a Jawbone before moving to a Withings then to a Misfit and ultimately to a Garmin, every seven days. Although switching devices would likely not be replicated in an employee challenge, this method did help provide feedback on which devices were the easiest to use and drove the most engagement.


Many users found the Garmin and Jawbone devices and apps to be among the simplest. "It was really easy to create an account and sync online," one participant said of the Garmin. Another commented, "It could [sync] thru mobile or desktop/laptop devices."The Jawbone also received positive reviews. "Instructions online were easy to interpret," one participant said.


"There were minimal steps to set up and [the] only maintenance was to charge it." Overall, ease of setup and app use, length of battery life and autosync were among the most-important features for participants. Most also preferred devices that displayed their step count on the device itself - rather than a numberless progress bar - so they could work toward their goal throughout the day. Beyond the ease of use of the technology, participants stated that another key factor of healthy behavior change included the element of competition, not to mention the fun and friendship that comes with peer accountability through a platform.


"Our employees like anything team-based," one participant said in a post-challenge survey. User data from elsewhere in the industry supports this point, Anthony Knierim, Matchup's COO said, "Fitness wearable data, while it's interesting to individuals, lacks the context necessary to drive behavior change at the individual level."


Team challenges, then, might be the most effective method, compared to logging one's step count in an app or desktop version of a tracker on its own. Another participant in the EHBC challenge said, "[The individual challenge] didn't really 'inspire' as there was no 'relationship' between the contestants, so no drive or impetus [to participate].


"One of Matchup's features that received plenty of positive feedback, the Journey Challenge mode, also helped inspire a drive to participate with its novel feature set, challengers said. Journey Challenges - a function on Matchup's desktop version and iOS app - enable users to compete with their friends or coworkers as they all progress virtually along a real-life route of their choosing, such as the Pacific Crest Trail, the Colorado Trail, Washington, D.C.'s National Mall and many more.


Team-based challenges give employees a little bit of friendly fitness competition. When users, in this case, a group of employees, can compare activity levels to friends, coworkers and other individuals, they can better understand their own habits and make meaningful changes for the better. Prizes, according to EHBC challengers, might also help engagement.


"We have found the chance to win something is a significant motivator," one employer EHBC surveyed said. The consistent sentiment observed through discussions with corporate wellness leaders is that contextualizing data to drive change is a challenge in creating an effective program. Fitness wearable data, while interesting, lacks the context necessary to drive real behavior change. Matchup believes that this context can be attained by showing how individual activity compares to that of friends, coworkers and others via a championed community.


Matchup also believes that pairing community to contextual goals like custom virtual journeys that have meaning, can have significant impact on sustained engagement; for example a virtual journey between two corporate offices using the distance metric from the device to move a player's avatar along the virtual map visualization. Ultimately, the long-term engagement needed to produce meaningful behavior change for users of fitness wearable devices and wellness programs relies on an ecosystem of people and tools that champion the product and community, encouraging and enhancing the wellness of all.


Behavior change for wellness is important. And community and engaging programming can help users get there.


About the Author

Anthony Knierim is the co-founder of Matchup, where he leads operations and market strategy. A progressive digital-media executive and thought-leader in the human capital/talent space, he has spent close to a decade building award-winning strategic technology solutions for both Accenture & Aon.1


Corporate Wellness is a 13 Million Unit Wearable Wireless Device Opportunity. (2013, September 25). Retrieved June 11, 2015, from https://www.abiresearch.com/press/corporate-wellness-is-a-13-million-unit-wearable-w/

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