Menlo Park, CA: Vivecoach, the leading corporate wellness challenge application company, announces that its customer, Flextronics, has recently completed a company-wide “Step” challenge with 2,500 employees across the U.S.  With a participating employee completion rate of 80% and commitment of the Flextronics management team, this was one of Vivecoach’s most successful challenges to-date.  Challenge participants logged over 577 million steps in the month-long challenge with a significant number of employees noting weight loss and reduced stress levels. The challenge was sponsored and led by Flextronics’ “Wellness Champions” and demonstrated the huge impact of involving employees in the planning and execution of wellness events.

The Vivecoach step-challenge served as Flextronics’ 2011 U.S. wellness program kickoff event. All participating Flextronics employees received a pedometer to track fitness progress. The challenge spanned four weeks with a nominal prize for the top stepping teams. More than 200 teams comprised of 12 employees each organized themselves off-line and signed up on the Vivecoach website. Captains were able to take advantage of Vivecoach’s new Captain-tracking™ feature, allowing captains to track for Flextronics’ employees who were not able to regularly access the internet.

“This challenge exceeded our expectations and we received considerable positive feedback from employees who participated in the program. In fact, there was such enthusiasm about the program that many teams created social boards to encourage teammates and show results,” said Suzan Ramsey, Senior Director of U.S. Benefits for Flextronics. “Vivecoach provided the tools and support for our employees to be successful and we expect our employees to continue this sense of community around wellness.”

As an extension of the step-challenge, the company intends to sponsor a number of challenges throughout the coming year to promote wellness and support fitness goals. To help achieve this important objective, Flextronics has recruited employee wellness champions at each U.S. site to provide local wellness program leadership.

This summer we had the pleasure of attending the Healthcare Unbound Conference where we heard Lisa McGill from Brocade talk about “Wellness at Brocade”.  Vivecoach has become part of Brocade’s strategy to promote wellness through their private online social platform the B-Hive.  Using Vivecoach’s challenge tool Brocade employees have successfully participated in numerous corporate challenges. Brocade will soon launch their first ever “Family Challenge” using Vivecoach.  “We believe that it is important to include employees’ family members so these lifestyle changes become more sustainable”, says McGill. 

We were thrilled to meet so many enthusiastic IDT employees, many of whom had begun forming their teams of six and gauging their competition. Others were already planning hikes along the local trails during lunch breaks, and in true high-achieving form, most had set goals of 150K steps for the two-week time span of the challenge (over 10,000 steps per day!)

The employees at IDT San Jose were especially excited that their teams would be competing against other IDT teams in China and Penang, Malaysia –a truly global endeavor!

The event also proved to be Hubble the Sloth’s big break into stardom. The Hubble beanie baby mascots who accompanied us at the Vivecoach table constantly drew admiring and longing looks. Happily, we were able to send a few Hubble babies home with the lucky IDT employees who won the raffle at the end of the day.

The challenge has since started and is in full force, with over 700 participants on 114 teams! Stay tuned for results!

MENLO PARK, CA, Jun 16, 2011:  Vivecoach announced that the company has raised a new round, bringing total funding to $1.5M. Lead investors include serial entrepreneurs Konstantin Othmer and Bruce Leak, with participation from Seraph Group, Aquinas Companies, TIBCO Software co-founder Jeff Risberg, and several other technology investors.

“We are delighted that these seasoned investors have partnered with us to fulfill our vision of revolutionizing corporate wellness through gaming,” says Vivecoach co-founder and CEO Doug Keare. “They really understand what it takes to build a significant business and are providing incredibly valuable insight and guidance.”

The new funding will allow Vivecoach to expand its marketing and direct sales efforts and continue to push the envelope on creating the simplest, most rewarding user experience for corporate employees. The Vivecoach service is currently being used by employees in over 20 countries as executives everywhere are eager to bring visibility and action to their corporate wellness efforts while improving teamwork and morale.

“Vivecoach’s early customer success proves the effectiveness of their gamification approach to wellness and employee engagement. This financing will help them expand their direct sales efforts and pursue key strategic partnerships,” says co-lead investor Konstantin Othmer.

A new study conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel, shows that friendly co-workers may increase your lifespan by up to 20 years.  “The results show social support from peers at work was associated with a reduced risk of death from any cause over a 20-year period.” Even when the researchers took other factors that influence mortality into consideration the results still stayed.  There was no link found between the social support from supervisors.  The evidence also showed that the link between social support from co-workers and mortality was strongest for subjects between the ages of 38 to 43.

Menlo Park, CA: Vivecoach, the leading corporate wellness challenge application company, announces that its customer, Brocade  (recently ranked one of the Top 10 Best Places to Work in the San Francisco Bay Area), has recently completed a 531-person global exercise challenge.  With an employee completion rate of over 97% for participating employees and the commitment of the entire Brocade executive team, this was one of Vivecoach’s most successful challenges.  The challenge reinforced the power and value of executive involvement in driving health engagement.

To kick off the challenge, the company’s top 12 executives formed a team and challenged all employees to compete against them in teams of 12. In all, 44 teams comprising 531 employees joined the challenge. Brocade set a target of 30 minutes of exercise per day per participant. The goal for this challenge was consistency and engagement in getting a large number of employees to exercise a healthy amount on a daily basis. If each member of a team completed 30 minutes of exercise for at least 10 of the 14 challenge days, that team was eligible to win Brocade-branded fitness gear. Bonus points and prizes were also doled out for completing “extra credit” activities.  Ultimately most teams appeared to value the bragging rights, team building, and competition above the prizes.

By the end of the challenge 70% of the teams and 75% of the individual competitors reached or surpassed the 10-days-of-activity goal.  Two hundred competitors reached the 30-minute threshold for all 14 days and one team finished with a perfect score.  In all, 97% of all competitors actively participated in the challenge; a huge success for a group of this size. Setting a pragmatic, attainable target helped get more employees involved and taught them that completing the AHA-recommended exercise amount was achievable. Further, the teaming that occurred over the course of the challenge  helped these employees keep one another on-track and accountable for their exercise goals.

“This challenge was a huge hit at Brocade and we look forward to doing many more challenges with Vivecoach!”  Lisa McGill: VP Worldwide HR-Brocade, Chair of WellFit Committee.

The group was very social and took full advantage of the Vivecoach “Challenge Wall”. The group posted team photos and made more than 600 other wall posts, many of which mentioned walking, sports, and exercise groups that had formed during the challenge. Many users committed that they would continue to exercise with their new groups after the challenge ended.

“The exercise challenge encouraged me and a few of my coworkers to start playing squash at lunchtime. The challenge is over, but we’ve decided to keep playing a few times each week,” said one participant.

Other participants reached out to Vivecoach for more challenges to keep them going.

“Just finished the challenge! I’m feeling light, energetic and I lost a few pounds. Looking forward to a similar challenge in the future,” said another.

Vivecoach continues to demonstrate the value of fun and social interaction in bringing visibility and action to corporate wellness efforts. Employees’ acceptance of events and programs that can improve their health behaviors, while having fun with their co-workers and building esprit de corps, is being well proven.

Press Contact

Joanna Laznicka
joanna@phaze-9.com
408-448-3113