A multinational aerospace and defence leader needed help launching a new approach to wellbeing, one that helps its people live happier and healthier lives. But we were determined this wouldn’t be just another wellness campaign.
Our challenge was to cut through the cacophony of online wellness warriors, to show a global audience that wellbeing isn’t just about salad snacking and marathon running.
The result: employees seeing the benefits of a rich evidence-based programme with a holistic approach to health. With a festival-style launch and tangible proof points built into the everyday – including different levels of accreditation for each of its sites and peer-led committees – every employee has what they need to live well at their fingertips.
When a multinational aerospace and defence leader had created a set of scientific evidence-based materials to sit alongside a holistic wellbeing programme, they turned to us for an engaging campaign. We knew employees needed to see and feel the benefits of a healthy body, healthy mind and a healthy workplace (without feeling preached to).
Sounds easy, right? Not quite. Set that against the backdrop of wellness warriors that dominate the online world; whatever we did it had to cut through. Now try doing that in a global business with more than 50,000 people across 40 countries. That’s a real challenge.
Wellbeing isn’t all about marathon running and salad eating. To truly live well you have to take control of your life, but to do that you need the right guidance.
For employees, the science-based programme covered advice from handling finances to tips on taking care of your mental health, helping employees find ways to live happier and healthier lives. A festival-style launch kicked off the whole campaign and we sustained that excitement by zooming in, telling individual stories of those key employees involved and making the most of the campaign.
But the programme runs deeper, with an intrinsic change from the inside out, enacted by committees at every site and leadership sponsorship supported by performance goals. A site accreditation scheme helps teams understand where they are today and how to make tangible improvements tomorrow. Moving from bronze through to platinum gave teams a wellbeing objective to aim for.
The holistic approach provides an evidence-based roadmap for healthy living. It encourages employees to tailor their wellbeing efforts to their teams and sites with some choosing to organise ‘stop smoking’ drives while others promote ‘walking meetings’. The campaign is being built into the culture.
It’s given employees permission to put their physical and mental health first, to go beyond just healthy eating and do everything they can to feel and do their best.
Powerful stories have emerged, such as the employee attending a seminar at work about prostate cancer that made him get checked out. Cancer showed up in his results and his doctor said he wouldn’t have lived if he hadn’t reached out when he did. That’s why it’s not just another wellness campaign.
