Erimover

Almost unanimously, every business leader acknowledges the critical role that their employees play in an organisation’s overall endeavours to succeed. Thus, maintaining the mental and physical health of a business’s lifeblood is the first priority of any organisation. A hale and hearty workforce not only pushes the productive boundaries but also establishes overall business excellence in an organisation.

The core responsibility to make this happen, nevertheless, falls on the shoulders of a company’s proactive eagerness. The traditional reactive diagnosis of an employees’ lifestyle or an annual employee wellbeing endeavour is no longer enough. Firms now need a more pre-emptive approach towards establishing and retaining a positive work culture for its employees. However, the proactive wellness realm is highly fragmented when compared to the deeply-entrenched and quite consolidated reactive healthcare market. Organisations need to consider everything from sleep to stress management, along with physical training, and its different sub-areas to provide an all-round health and wellness regime for its employees.

Today, this organisational outlook towards better employee wellbeing is being catapulted by Erimover, a health and wellness company.

The company has built a unique ecosystem in the proactive health and wellness market, or as Erimover defines it—the active health market—in Finland. This includes authorised and standardised education, coaching and lecturing from active health professionals (through face-to-face interactions, webinars, or online videos), group fitness exercise, testing and measuring, games and plays, guarding (for instance, activity parks), and active health content production.

Erimover has found the core of enabling a well-oiled ‘human’ machine…

One can compare Erimover’s employee wellness approach to how an industrial facility benefits from the predictive maintenance of its equipment. Such facilities actively monitor its pieces of machinery and do not wait for it to breakdown first in order to get it fixed.

Erimover’s employee active health approach is about improving overall health resulting in decreasing sick-leaves, increased productivity, improved employer image, but foremost – in improved life quality

“Our mindset is also somewhat similar to that. The only difference, Erimover’s predictive maintenance (a.k.a. proactive healthcare) is more humane, and aimed at the most valuable assets of a company: its employees,” says Joakim Berndtsson, co-founder and CEO of Erimover.

How It All Began

Before establishing Erimover, Berndtsson was an up-and-coming CEO of a publicly-listed Finnish company. However, Berndtsson highlights that as both of his parents were entrepreneurs, he also wanted to venture on his own entrepreneurial journey. So, he took the first step and contacted a friend and fellow sports enthusiast Sonja Lauren, who shared a mutual love for sports and fitness with Berndtsson. Together, they found Erimover.

The name of the company, which is the Finnish word for ‘Different Mover,’ perfectly captures the core business idea Berndtsson and Lauren have: ‘combining business knowledge with positive energy’ to establish a unique model for corporate wellness programmes. Erimover’s offerings initially focused on family swimming courses and fitness clubs. But soon, Berndtsson and Laurén realised a lack of proactive health service ecosystems that needed to be built on top of regular fitness training. Hence, the co-founders decided to turn their sail towards the proactive healthcare sector ecosystem. “Today, I can proudly say that we really move forward faster and with more agility than anyone else in the active health market,” quips Berndtsson.

This is reflected in Erimover comprehensive offerings that include holistic health and wellness services to private and public sector organisations with a nationwide network of health and fitness professionals. Erimover’s clients benefit from the diverse skill set of these certified professionals in the fields of nutrition, mobility, fitness, yoga, and more. Without them, as Berndtsson notes, “we couldn’t offer the highest quality and results-driven hustle our customers deserve.”

Moreover, the well-designed health and wellness programmes focus on the continuous physical and mental development of its clients’ employees. Berndtsson underscores, “We help our clients proactively focus on employee wellness that ultimately results in a healthy life and enhanced productivity.”

Erimover starts crafting a health and wellness programme ideal for a concerned company only after having an elaborate discussion with them. Supplementing the programme, Erimover goes the extra mile and periodically provides optimised services from active health professionals, which include webinars, lectures, personal traning, group exercises, and online material developed by the fitness experts. What’s more? Erimover collaborates with fitness and wellness technology and equipment brands, such as Qicraft Nordic – the exclusive distributor of Technogym—the world’s second-largest fitness equipment manufacturer, as channel partners. “We’re there training our mutual customers, the gyms, in optimal usage of Technogym’s equipment in Finland,” states Berndtsson.

Orchestrating Workplace Wellness Even Amidst Pandemic

When asked about the severity of COVID-19 and its effect on the health and fitness industry, Berndtsson says, “It has brought a heavy hit for the industry in general. But we’ve managed to grow and I’m convinced that as a result of the pandemic people globally finally will understand the importance of active health”. On that front, Erimover has recently helped various Finnish health and fitness companies stay afloat amid the pandemic. With social distancing norms in place, Erimover responded to the situation with its own online platform HELT for live streaming of online fitness courses and classes. They also set up a health hotline where people could get information about active health. As a result, Erimover’s clients in the fitness industry could retain their customers by extending these services online. “Our people handled the situation with positivity, energy, imagination, and agility,”remarks Berndtsson.

Displaying such veracity, Erimover intends to remain committed to its unique active health strategy and grow it further along the way. The company’s moonshot goal is to expand internationally, initially focusing on the Nordic countries. Berndtsson, nevertheless, keeps the window of opportunity open for other markets as well. To this end, their company is now fine-tuning its unique concept while strengthening its clientele in Finland’s proactive health sector ecosystem.