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How Do You Build A Wellness Program For 700,000+ Employees?

This article is more than 4 years old.

When creating a workplace wellness program for a company of any size, assessing the employees' needs is the first thing to consider.

Is there a need for an intentional eating program? Should there be sessions held about a tobacco-free environment? Would mindfulness training be helpful? Can we create an engaging wellness challenge that works for a global workforce of over 730,000 employees?

Marriott International recently tackled the last question head-on with the launch of TakeCare Level30, a custom-app based wellbeing challenge available for guests and associates around the world. The app is available for free download on the Apple App store and Google Play. In this app, players can partner up and compete by using the game-like app to help build positive, rewarding behaviors into a daily routine.

According to Dr. David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Human Resources Officer at Marriott International, “We established TakeCare as a wellbeing initiative many years ago to give associates easy, efficient ways to improve their health and happiness. Today, it has become a global movement fueled by a universal passion for opportunity, community, and purpose.” During the beta test of the app, players around the world have achieved a variety of tasks such as reading for over 37,000 minutes, meditated for more than 11,000 minutes, and consumed over 5,500 liters of water.

Marriott International is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of more than 7,000 properties under 30 leading brands spanning 131 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. Given the size of Marriott and the number of people that they cater to, TakeCare Level30 is a perfect app to encourage employees and guests around the world to live healthy lives.

“TakeCare Level30 is an engaging experience designed with a partner in mind to complete a variety of wellbeing activities and earn points together. It’s always better to have a friend or colleague you can rely on for encouragement when making any kind of change,” said Leah Evert, Global Director of Associate Wellbeing at Marriott International. “We developed the app with the notion that it takes 30 days to build a habit. The activities are tied to personal wellbeing, connecting with others, and caring for the environment – all a part of what makes working at Marriott International so rewarding for associates – and achievable within 30 days.” 

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Leah about the TakeCare Level30 during the Inspiring Healthy Workplaces podcast where she explained the ins and outs of what it took to create, as well as continue to monitor, the wellbeing app. Leah has worked with the Marriott International’s Benefits Team from the very beginning to help them with their wellness strategy. 

The TakeCare team, which has been around for about eight years, had the idea of providing a strategy where associates could live their healthiest lives with the hopes that it would have a direct impact on overall healthcare costs as well as the turnover and absenteeism rates. The team had one initial goal: To help people take ownership of their health. The TakeCare team has created everything from health and wellness promotions to campaigns such as step challenges and weight loss support. As time went on, they decided to broaden the strategy by making it more holistic to stress the fact that the terms wellness, fitness, and nutrition were too specific for employees around the globe. Leah believes that the health behaviors that individuals engage in are related to their overall happiness, interactions with others, and the impact that their organization has on the community. The strategy was then expanded even more to include several pillars of wellbeing such as personal wellness, overall relationships at work, and feelings about the organization's commitment to making a difference in the community. 

One of the most important parts of creating the TakeCare Level30 app was to make it relevant for people across the world. Leah explained that the global campaign does a great job of unifying the company across the workforce. Employees are able to personalize their experience by allowing the Human Resources leaders across the globe to be engaged, by utilizing the network of 15,000 TakeCare Champions that activate the programs on their properties, and by implementing the TakeCare Certification. The certification allows for associates to get recognized for fostering an environment of wellbeing. They are able to earn gold, silver, platinum, and titanium certifications. Champions are able to post on their digital hub about the positive things that they are doing on their property as well.

For Marriott International, incentives have never been of significant importance for their wellness program. The team wants health and wellness to be apart of the culture of the organization instead of employees feeling compelled to do something that they don't want to do. The purpose is for employees to feel like they are doing something valuable that benefits their lives in a positive way.

Technology plays a major role when delivering the wellbeing message to such a large group, but sometimes simple is better. According to Leah, overdoing technology can be detrimental because healthy behaviors happen in real life, not over the phone or computer. The team understands that the players track their habits on the app, but the habits are things that are done externally.

The overall success of the app is determined by the utilization of it. Since associates are allowed to invite guests and even the general public to participate, properties are not incentivized to collect all of the points but to get the most people to play. The weighted average score takes into consideration the number of workers at the property as well as the number of points collected. That is the final metric for determining the winners at each property. The TakeCare team expects to see 30,000 players, but their stretch goal is to hit 100,000 players. 

The TakeCare team believes that happiness is contagious. That means that if the associates are happy, then the guests will be happy, and so on. The purpose of the app is for everyone to enjoy it and create healthy habits for the future. The app allows you to view the leader boards all over the world so that players can personally challenge someone who is close to them in points or even work with someone to increase their points. According to Leah, “Everyone is a different spot in their wellbeing journey. Tasks that may seem easy or that may already be apart of someone’s day-to-day routine are included to reinforce that what they are doing is a healthy behavior to continue.”

Download TakeCare Level30 today to join in the fun with Marriott International associates around the world.

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