When the Feat vision began, there was a simple premise: move more, eat better, stay happy. The concept of rewarding physical activity with good food rewards was eventually prototyped into what is today FeatApp, available for individual users on their mobile devices. However, by creating a rewarding and engaging system where a network of benefits can be accessed simply by doing a set of healthy actions, Feat aims to inspire the personal and collective well-being in both small and large scale communities, including the workplace.
Welcome Feat.Corp
That’s why we’ve come up with Feat.Corp, a custom version of the public FeatApp, individually designed for companies to promote increased physical activity, healthy eating habits and collaborative communities in the workplace. A healthy employee is a productive (and happy) employee. The average person spends over 90,000 hours of their life at work so why not make the environment a healthy and productive one? Research shows that employees who eat healthy all day long were 25% more likely to have higher job performance, while in addition, employees who exercise for at least 30 minutes, three times a week, were 15% more likely to have higher job performance. Other studies show that employees are 10% more engaged when provided health food options and 18% more engaged when provided time for healthy activities. Rising obesity rates are linked to more sedentary lifestyles and lack of access to healthy food, can also be costly to employees.
Feat.Corp works as a motivation machine within the workforce, encouraging employees to increase physical activity, make informed nutrition decisions, and create team building machines. Research shows motivation plays a crucial role in eating and activity behavior change (Kelly et al. 1991). Reward based systems, such as Feat.Corp, have been identified as proactive healthcare technologies that activate motivational systems (Intille 2004), Additional research shows certain classes of natural extrinsic reinforcers, such as food, are highly effective in activating reward-based behaviors (Berns et al. 2001), resulting in greater and more prolonged changes in behavior (Tarou and Bashaw 2007). Feat.Corp starts in the workplace but goes beyond the office walls, striving to make lasting behavior change for healthy, productive lifestyles.
Feat.Corp for Barilla: Success in the workplace
Established in Parma in 1877 out of a shop that made bread and pasta, today Barilla is among the top Italian food groups and a leading producer of pasta in the world. The food-focused group brought Feat.Corp into the workplace. It was introduced in the Parma headquarters involving 200 employees, over six months time. Each participating employee was given a wearable tracker, the custom Feat.Corp for Barilla app, a lifestyle habit survey, a team and individual set-up appointments for the program. The program began with a kick-off event attended by members of Feat to explain the program and walk through the program outline.
Sprints
The program was divided into four segments each called a “sprint”. Individuals were able to redeem rewards based on a metric system that awarded one coin per 1,000 steps. During each period, participants were competing for both personal rewards and team rewards. The goal is to never get bored, keep a fast pace, and change activities, awards and rankings quite often.
The final sprint was based on a food experience edition. Individuals and teams were competing to win a final food experience to share with the among each individual team: a cooking show and final meal. The experience was organized by Feat and focused on cooking and sharing a meal together with professional chefs.
Results
The Feat.Corp program was able to validate Feat.Corp as a motivator for increased physical activity and improved healthy lifestyle. Using results from pre and post survey, and a control group as a comparison, on average participants in Feat.Corp increased their daily physical activity by 32% after one month.
A post-program survey was filled out by an average of 80 Feat.Corp users. The questions showed that 88% felt they had improved lifestyle in regards to physical activity. 65% think more about their level of physical activity, 34% increased intensity of their daily physical activity and 48% increased frequency through simple actions such as parking further away, avoiding the elevator and using company spaces to move around more. Top motivators included Individual consultations to assess performance (35%) and the wearable device (37%). In an exit survey for participants, they called the program “motivating and easy to use,” “stimulating” and “fun.” As one participant said, “The most rewarding prize was receiving useful advice for a healthy lifestyle and knowing that with just small behavior changes you can have a healthier lifestyle.” Overall, 92% were satisfied with the information supplied through the program in regards to physical activity 94% of respondents would continue with the program and increased their appreciation for the company. “The best part was setting and meeting my goals. There was great personal satisfaction,” shared one participant.
Next Steps for Feat.Corp
Feat.Corp encourages personal wellbeing, environmental wellbeing (encourages more walking and biking and less use of the car) and social interaction, using the team aspect to build community and conversation in the workplace. We look forward to expanding Feat.Corp into businesses across the globe, and are excited to for the next two projects we have coming up!
