hero

Over the last decade, the concept of workplace wellbeing has become far more holistic, moving beyond absence management, illness prevention, and physical fitness to include all aspects of an employee’s life. In other words, a whole person approach encompassing everything from physical wellbeing to emotional and mental wellbeing as well as social, organisational, career, and even financial wellbeing of employees is being widely acknowledged as a ‘must-have’ for businesses looking to attract and retain top talent. With the coronavirus pandemic impacting every aspect of people’s lives, employers are re-examining ways to support and protect their employees’ changing physical, mental, and family support needs. In the midst of all this, with most HR professionals on board with the concept of whole-person wellbeing, the question that arises is: ‘how to bring this approach to life in employee wellbeing programs?’

The answer is with hero, a Leeds, West Yorkshire-based firm that is creating sophisticated and intuitive technology and solutions to help forward-thinking organisations to support employee wellbeing with real, measurable ROI. “Our unique digital wellbeing platform, Navigator, allows individuals and businesses to manage and progress goals, including sleep, steps, exercise, nutrition, breathing, activity, habits, and recovery. Navigator is our answer to keeping on top of your personal wellbeing,” says Joe Gaunt, CEO, hero.

Navigator is a whole person wellness solution that focuses on four key pillars: physical, mental, social, and financial health. The core elements of the solution include a habits platform that connects to all major wearable devices and operating systems—iOS and android—and enables individuals to track and create habits and goals. There is also a community and chat functionality where employers can create specialist groups like Wellbeing Champions and Mental Health First Aid Data groups to support their colleagues. “The platform also features company specific pages that help drive culture, mission, purpose, and values. For example, a CEO can upload their favorite yoga poses or breathing exercises on the page that other employees can view and take into consideration for improving their health. It also helps drive employee engagement,” explains Gaunt. In addition, Navigator also has a wellness library with hundreds of credible videos, articles, tips, resources, and guidance to help across the four main pillars of wellbeing and every aspect of preventative health that one can imagine.

What’s more? There is a comprehensive nutrition library with over 400 healthy recipes. These recipes follow a distinct, scientifically validated health system that helps employees with different nutrition goals. “These recipes also connect to the menus in local supermarkets; hence, individuals can order healthy foods through the Navigator platform.

Our unique digital wellbeing platform, Navigator, allows individuals and businesses to manage and progress goals, including sleep, steps, exercise, nutrition, breathing, activity, habits, and recovery. Whether you are based at home, in the office, or a mixture of the two. If you are working on your own or part of a large organisation, we can support across all aspects of health; physical, mental, social and financial health, anywhere in the world

Besides, we have a health store where employees can get healthy discounts off supplements, nutrition, wearables, and the likes of it from hero’s selected partners,” informs Gaunt. Navigator can be accessed both as a responsive web platform as well as an application. Personalisation is at the core of everything that hero does. In fact, the Navigator platform can be customised to suit an individual’s requirements by removing modules that they don’t require or creating new modules that fit their need. “As an individual, an employee can also choose the areas that they want to focus on and modify those focuses as their health changes. And, that’s where we think the real power of our product lies,” states Gaunt. The firm takes a consultative process when it comes to understanding the needs of the companies it serves in detail as to how they communicate, what their culture is, and where the gaps are in terms of their health strategy. “We then overlap that with a tailored, completely unique solution that will help the organisation in all aspects of employee health,” adds Gaunt. “Rather than needing to procure a partner each for mental or physical health, we are guided by an organisation in terms of what they need.”

A testament to hero’s bespoke approach to helping employers and employees become healthier, stronger, and happier people is the firm’s success story with Caddick Construction, a family-owned construction and civil engineering business. “Over the course of the year, we improved their health and wellbeing score by 21 percent, happiness across their organisation by six percent and their satisfaction with their nutrition and activity levels by eight percent and five percent, respectively,” mentions Gaunt.

Basking in the glory of such competencies, hero is all set to extend its services and solutions to clients in the U.S. and the Asia Pacific region. In that quest, the firm plans to open offices in both locations by the next year or two. Employee health and wellbeing is no longer just a ‘try and tick the box’ facet; COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of health and the need for it to be high on the agenda for organisations. “Working with a partner like hero that can offer support through uncertainty using trusted content in terms of being scientifically validated and evidence-based will make all the difference for businesses across all aspects of health,” concludes Gaunt.