Our last month’s theme was ‘Sit Less.’ This was a month-long campaign dedicated to providing motivation and an opportunity for our employees to move more throughout the day. This formed part of our overall staff well-being campaign dedicated to Physical Health.

How did the campaign increase staff well-being?

It’s no secret that increasing physical activity has a litany of health benefits, both physical and mental. Therefore, this month encouraged our staff to embed more walking into their everyday routines.

Throughout this time, we invited employees to take part in the ‘Trade Interchange Walking Challenge.’ The challenge involved all participants being split into four groups, with participants spreading across a range of departments, including management! The goal of the challenge was simple. Staff had to keep count of their steps using a pedometer. Whichever group had the highest total at the end of May wins!  Every Friday, each group would share their running total, to encourage friendly competition!

The competition had a strong uptake of almost 50%, with staff fully committing to increasing their steps. The challenge encouraged morning walks and lunchtime strolls, which genuinely motivated employees to incorporate more steps into their everyday routines, and increase staff-wellbeing.

However, the physical benefits weren’t the only positives to arise from the challenge. The competition also increased interactions and camaraderie in the office, and provided the opportunity for departments who interact less daily, to work together!

The Results of the staff well-being challenge:

The final results were impressive, with half of the teams reaching over 900,000 steps over the course of the challenge, and Group 1 taking away the gold! A huge well done to Marie Lazzari (and her two dogs Juno and Loki), Liam Innes, James Edmunds and Mike Edmunds!

1st: Group 1 – 985,817

2nd: Group 3 – 939,184

3rd: Group 4 – 688,668

4th: Group 2 – 684,826

With our total number of steps as an organisation, we could walk to each of our UK-based clients, onto AAK in Malmo, finishing at Nortura in Oslo!

A big congratulations to everyone who took part! The next steps involve maintaining the healthy walking habits that were built as part of the challenge.

As we continue with our staff well-being program, we aim to continue to encourage healthy habits across our organisation and continue to make Trade Interchange a positive and supportive place to work!

To learn more about Trade Interchange, have a look at the video here.