Feat is all about having fun. We want our participants to move more, eat better and enjoy themselves. From our small idea (steps count!) we’ve created big impact, and not just for individuals. The idea of moving Feat into the workplace was inspired by a desire to target communities where unhealthy habits have a strong hold and where Feat could flourish full circle: a place where benefits abound on both sides of the street, for employers and employees.
One of the main drivers of implementing company wellness programs like Feat is the high employee turnover rate in the biggest and fastest-growing IT companies. The reasons for this are due to an environment that is highly stressful and highly competitive, as well as a sensation of lack of belonging among employees. According to PayScale’s recent employee turnover report, the employee turnover rate among Fortune 500 companies in the IT industry is the highest among all industries surveyed. All of this has a cost: according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, employers need to spend the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary in order to find and train their replacement. Doing the math, that means that an employee salaried at $100,000 will cost the company anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000 to hire and train a replacement.
While employee participants are tracking steps and sleep, competing for healthy, experiential food rewards, the goal is for companies to benefit as well from Feat’s implementation in the workplace. As employees engage with Feat, we want them to not just to feel better (physically and mentally) but also work better for their company.
The tricky part? How to measure the Feat impact not just for individual participants, but for companies as well. That’s why we’ve turned to Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis. SROI is an outcome-based measurement tool that helps organizations understand and quantify the social, environmental and economic value they are creating. SROI identifies and values impacts that are significant, helping companies understand what social value an activity (like Feat) creates within a company through a method of assigning value through financial proxies. It’s also a chance to open up an avenue for communication between employers and employees, and help understand the areas where change is needed and what needs and expectations both parties involved may have.
For Feat in Airbnb, we broke down the services and costs to implement the Feat program. Then we identified four target areas to which value was assigned:
1. Team building, community creation
2. Engagement, fun, entertainment
3. Perceived wellness and health consciousness
4. Satisfaction with company care and attention
Then, by breaking down the target value areas, assigning them a monetary value and assessing participant satisfaction through surveys, each section of the value chain was able to be represented by a financial sum. The final conclusion compares the cost to implement Feat with the estimated social, economical, and environmental gain of the Feat program.
Here’s what we found out:
1. Team building, community creation
The Feat idea is to create common goals and shared motivation among a team while fostering support and motivation among groups as well as individuals, using healthy practices as a way to strengthen community. Financial proxies assigned to this value would be group activities, either physical or class participation-based like group fitness, spinning classes, yoga classes, group cycling tours, etc.
On a scale from 1 to 5, the impact felt by participants on community creation, was on average 2.58 which means a 51.6% impact rate.
2. Engagement, fun, entertainment
Feat aims to provide fun and entertainment while people engage in physical activity. Feat combines healthy practices with fun. Rewards, workshops and events enable participants to engage while having fun. Furthermore, Airbnb participants are able to engage with other employees they usually do not work with during Feat activities. This leads participants to establish new relationships. Financial proxies could be activities such as cooking classes that would lead to meeting new people and learning healthy recipes while having fun or wellbeing classes such as yoga and meditation. These activities foster engagement, fun, and entertainment.
On a scale from 1 to 5, the impact felt by participants on fun and engagement was on average 2.69 which means 53.8% impact rate.
3. Perceived wellness and health consciousness
Feat helps to create a way of life in the workplace that integrates healthy practices into everyday work activities. Participants may be motivated by their company’s attention and care. Wellness activities provide positive return on participants in terms of career, emotional, physical and social wellbeing. Financial proxies might include spas, thermal activities, gym subscriptions, and digital and in-person physical activities. These activities provide people with both mental and physical wellness.
On a scale from 1 to 5, the impact felt by participants on fun and engagement was on average 2.77 which means 55.4% impact rate.
4. Satisfaction with company care and attention
Employees who feel valued and taken care of by their companies are more likely to go above and beyond for the company and hold themselves accountable for their part of a project. Most importantly, they will be happier in their roles. The happier people are at work, the more productive they are. The positive attitude of companies and care for employees not just for profit-maximizing concerns but also for employee personal life encourages employee trust, loyalty and reliability to their companies. Proxies for this type of value would come from company consultancy agencies that offer companies the opportunity to utilize their skills, resources, and management capabilities to lead social progress. In the process, businesses can earn the respect of society.
On a scale from 1 to 5, the impact felt by participants on fun and engagement was on average 3.54 which means a 70.88% impact rate.
Calculating SROI
To calculate SROI the impact numbers from the survey results were combined with the proxy activities in a way to give an estimated monetary value to the results that Feat produced through the three month program. This way, the Feat program can be ascribed a monetary value that is then divided by the actual cost to implement Feat in the workplace.
In this case, Feat created a SROI of 1.16 which means a company that engages with Feat is getting almost a 20% return on investment.
SROI is useful in giving overall value to a program like Feat, but doesn’t cover every area of value. We’re excited to extract the knowledge from our Airbnb adventure and to use it to propel Feat forward, taking new steps along the way!
