Southern Cross is set to release its BeingWell app for businesses in March 2018 in a bid to make New Zealand workplaces healthier in body and mind.
Southern Cross Health Society chief marketing officer Chris Watney said the app was developed for businesses from lessons the insurer had learned from its internal “switch to well” programme that has been running for staff for close to a decade.
From March next year, businesses will be able to purchase the app for $60 per employee, per year, to help promote wellness and mental health in the workplace at both an individual and group level.
After downloading the BeingWell app, users will be asked to fill in a 20 question lifestyle survey on how they eat, think (mindfulness), move and sleep, and from that will receive a BeingWell score out of 100. Users can then customise and personalise the app by setting their own goals, identifying areas for improvement, and recording their progress.
Southern Cross hosted a wellbeing conference in Auckland last week, which was attended by close to 500 delegates. The insurer discussed the app with many companies who attended the conference and will continue such discussions to ensure the app meets workplace best practice.
Watney said all collective data would be aggregated and anonymised, and data would be not be collected from groups smaller than 10 to ensure anonymity.
The BeingWell hub will also host a content library, such as articles and blogs, competitions, special offers from a range of partners and case studies.
Users can also add pay-as-you-go extras, such as events, expert seminars, onsite health, customised calendars, and more. The app uses Olympic kayaking champion and Southern Cross brand ambassador Lisa Carrington’s tone of voice for coaching tips to keep users motivated.
“I think what’s really important for all of this is that you can measure it, and the data that sits behind this,” Watney said. “You can throw money at wellbeing all you like but unless you can measure the impact, then you don’t know what the impact is you’re having. So, the app is a really important part of that.
“Through the app you can have team challenges, start competing team against team, office against office or even company against company. But the really important thing is that we’re capturing data about how people are improving. It also helps with targeting, so if you know your IT team is suffering from stress then you can do something about that, and determine what’s going on there.”
Any business will be able to use the app, however Watney did say the insurer would at some point like to offer it to individual Southern Cross customers.
Businesses will also be able to customise the collective offering by adding on flu shots, employee assessments or more bespoke toolkits or running programmes that are tailored to a specific organisation, Watney said.
“It’s a big programme of stuff people get access to (the app and the content hub) and it’s corporate, business focused (at the moment) but ultimately we would like to offer it to individual clients,” Watney said. “Wellness is about building the strongest team and using that to build culture and ultimately a proposition.”
Related stories:
Insurer focuses on mental health
Insurance workers want culture shake up
.jpg)
