Active Europe: Implementation of a Health Campaign Using InnovativeTechnology to Engage Personnel

摘要

This paper describes a health-related campaign to engage personnel across Europe,together with familiesand friends,to increase their activity and therefore their fitness and health.The campaign,entitled ActiveEurope,was designed to encourage and motivate people at all levels of fitness and incorporate a wide rangeof sports and exercise.The campaign was enhanced and supported by the use of innovative IT tools andapps to allow participants to record their activity.An initial overall campaign target of 22,000 kilometers was set for participants.Using the most recentsuite of IT tools,a customized app was developed to enable participants to enter the details of theiractivities via either a mobile device or computer.A personalized dashboard showed individual contributions,together with a visible leader board to generate healthy competition between participants,locations andcountries.An enterprise social networking group was created to allow people to post pictures,videos,stories,achievements and information on their activities.A series of nudges was used throughout the campaign tomaintain interest and participation.Events were held at locations throughout Europe including family walks,cycling events,running andtable tennis competitions.Personalized emails in local languages were sent from the Regional HSE Managerpromoting the campaign with links to the supporting IT tools.An app was developed to capture data inkilometers in the categories of walk,run,cycle,swim,steps,and other.After the initial launch in April 2018,communication messages were reinforced with stories and updates on the internal social media platform,including distance traveled,participation and video montages of events.In the first week,a distance of 10,900 kilometers was recorded,with 253 app entries,163 members onthe internal social networking group with 78 messages posted that were read 7,728 times.In less than 14days the initial target was exceeded and other regions joined in with entries posted by employees from Asia,North America,South America and the Middle East.By week four,75,000 kilometers were logged.Participation and interest grew throughout the summer,with the initiative becoming self-sustaining via the internal social network group and performance trackingtools.By year-end,over 300,000 kilometers were achieved.Active Europe is an ongoing 2019 initiativewith continued IT tool enhancements.The innovative use of internal social networking and IT performance tracking tools have added clearvalue to the company in terms of more active,more engaged and healthier employees,all with no capitalexpenditure.