In a world where employee wellbeing has become increasingly important, one company has taken personalisation to the next level. HAWQ, a bespoke corporate wellbeing program hosted by STONE London, has launched a groundbreaking service that uses research-based data to provide individual employees with a scientifically calculated health score, known as the 'HAWQ Score'. This score takes into account five key pillars of health - sleep, body, movement, nutrition and mind - to give employees a comprehensive overview of their current wellbeing levels and potential areas for improvement. But it's not just about the numbers - HAWQ also offers tailored recommendations, coaching and workshops to help individuals make practical and sustainable changes to enhance their score over time. We caught up with Robbie Johnston, Managing Director of HAWQ, to learn more about the importance of personalisation in improving employee wellbeing and how HR teams can benefit from this cutting-edge approach.

How have employee benefits changed over the last couple years?

As part of our background, we did considerable market research into how employee health and wellbeing benefits have changed and shifted over the years.

For example, less than a decade ago, the only real strategy for employee health was to provide subsidised health insurance and discounts on local gym memberships. However, since the pandemic and the ‘Great Resignation’, there’s been a real shift and what we’re now seeing is that employers are being held more accountable for their employee’s overall health and wellbeing.

As we came out of the lockdowns, we found many employers came to us, asking what they could do for their teams outside of the standard offering of health insurance, mindfulness apps and free drinks on Fridays. They had been part of and seen the changes that their employees went through during the pandemic and rightly so, were worried about them. The mentality changed from, ‘what do we need to offer as a tick-box exercise’ into, ‘what can we do to support and help our people who may or may not be coping with the new working world?’.

That’s where we started with HAWQ. Trying to find something that would not just be a list of bonuses on the company’s roster, but truly effective and measurable wellness solutions that support people at work and home.

What role does personalisation play in employee wellness?

A recent BCG study provides evidence that your business is more successful the more diverse it is. This includes employing people from different genders, races and socio-economic backgrounds. This naturally means that a health and wellbeing offering needs to be as diverse and personal as your team is.

What we see is that a company culture – especially in health and wellbeing – is usually determined from the top of the business. For example, if the senior management enjoys after-work drinks to decompress after a busy period, that’s usually what will be instilled to the rest of the team. Similarly, if the CEO or senior founders are big into running or triathlons, there’s usually a run-club or something similar set-up. However, this doesn’t account for the fact that not everyone is able to enjoy or participate in these sorts of activities. These aren’t inclusive activities that promote better health, wellbeing and team culture as a whole.

Which is why, businesses need to offer a suite of services to their employees. That could be a raft of wellness apps or fitness options such as Gympass and classpass, where people can dip their toe into what they want. However, what this does require is active participation! How well this is promoted within an organisation is something that can be a struggle.  Gympass recently released data with the CIPD which showed that fewer than 20% of employees enrol on physical wellbeing offerings. So it’s often down to personal choice. The way to encourage participation within a business, we’ve found is through changing the community narrative on the topic.

How do you personalise your corporate wellness programme so that it benefits everyone, including the company?

We created HAWQ for exactly this reason, putting the human factor back into workplace wellbeing. Coupled with our HAWQ Score assessments, HAWQ is a hand-holding process where we get people to engage with their wellbeing on an individual and business–wide level.

Community buy-in is essential for workplace wellbeing to really be successful. We work to change the narrative within a business, through workshops, engagement programmes and bespoke assessments that encourages more participation and involvement for all.

For example, I recently had a call with a client who hadn’t exercised in more than two years before he did his HAWQScore. He has since joined his local gym and uses ClassPass every week to get his exercise in! This initial motivation came from his HAWQScore assessment, which showed him his personal strengths and weaknesses - across our five pillars of health; body, mind, movement, nutrition and sleep – and educated him on how he could and should be working on these areas. But the real extra step was the office conversations - he heard people in the workplace talking about their HAWQ Scores and how they were working on improving theirs and wanted to be part of this narrative.

Before, the office watercooler chat was reserved to gossip or complaint. We’re working with businesses to flip this and talk more about wellness wins; how they’ve achieved a better night’s sleep, what new class they tried at the local gym, how many extra steps they got in after the last workshop, which new alcohol free drink they enjoyed… and so on.

It’s all about creating a culture that’s accessible not only in one part and for one group of employees, but on different levels for different people but where everyone understands the importance and need for it.

What should HR teams think about when putting together a corporate wellness strategy?

My team and I truly believe it’s about looking at the broader picture. How is the success of corporate wellbeing being measured? Without a metric with which to measure it, how will it be successful? One could look at the amount of sick days within a team, or even general increase in turnover – but both of these can be laborious and have external factors influencing them.

HAWQScore provides a metric with tangible results, rooted in longevitiy. It gives businesses the service and metric with which to measure it upon. It’s a scoring system based on empirical evidence and studies which is designed to help people get healthier, for longer. This helps the individual employee on a personal level but the data is also aggregated and anonymised to be shared back with the wider company and business leaders so they can track how much employees and the business benefits from better health and wellbeing of its staff. It helps guide those who are already interested in their health & wellbeing in a new, strategically viable route and it gives those who have no idea where to begin with health and wellbeing, a simple and effective set of guidelines on where to begin and how to keep gaining traction. Having a dedicated service and team of people who are invested in making this happen for your business is vital.

How do you measure whether your offering has been successful for an individual and a business as a whole?

HAWQScore is a number, so it’s a metric that is easy and quantify to track improvements as business and as an individual. However, on a broader level, it has to unite a business by benefitting the individuals.

We recently spoke to one of our clients, who said he didn’t even need to see the number. In his own words, ‘I can already see it’s a positive and worthwhile offering to my team – it has got people talking, it has created relationships with a common thread. It’s helping sow a company culture we didn’t have before.’ For more information about HAWQ, go to: https://www.hawqscore.com/