Geolytix shares how it is growing and maintaining its wellbeing culture
How does a company grow and continue to operate without losing sight of its culture of wellbeing?
With a growing number of employees and offices in eight countries, for co-founder and COO Sarah Hitchcock what has been important is to maintain a “small team feel”, and a strong culture of wellbeing at Geolytix.
“One of our values is people,” she said, “the great thing with this company is we don’t have lots of red tape, so if people have an idea, you can suggest it.”
Founded in 2011, the company provides location planning data and consultancy services, counting major household names such as Asda, Dominoes and M&S among its clients.
It pays to look after people’s wellbeing
As specialists in the fast-paced and technically demanding world of data science, ensuring the Geolytix staff are happy and healthy is critical.
“The work is very taxing on the brain, so actually it just pays to look after people's wellbeing,” said Hitchcock.
Last year the company took part in ‘Techtimeout Tuesday’, an annual initiative that encourages businesses to support digital wellbeing in the workplace and get employees to take part in offline activities.
“We've got an office in Leeds and an office in London, so we have a northern and a southern team walk on the same day. We'll walk to the top of a hill, take pictures and send them to each other,” said Hitchcock.
Watch the video: How a small business is championing employee wellbeing
It ticks all the boxes
Supporting employee health and wellbeing is about more than just office walks and activity days and, in 2023, the company put in place Business Health Insurance cover with Vitality, which, Hitchcock said, “ticked all the boxes”.
“The majority of the team have used the GP services … people have said, ‘Oh thank you so much, I’ve had access to mental health support,’’ she added.
According to team member Louise, it’s not just support for her day-to-day wellbeing that she enjoys, but also the “behind-the-scenes healthcare, whether that’s opticians, dental, physio,” she said.
‘It’s all the stuff you need to be a happy employee. We’re really lucky to have these benefits.”
We’re a much healthier team
By incentivising and rewarding healthy habits like being more active, while providing comprehensive healthcare cover, Vitality has helped Geolytix to champion workplace wellbeing in a positive way that’s made a difference.
Given the firm’s line of work, activity tracking is particularly popular, as employee Matt Shaw described how he “tracks everything I can”.
Combining their mapping skills with activity days, the team even got creative and at Easter wrote out the word Happy Easter by marking walking routes on [physical exercise and social media app] Strava.
Best of all, though, all the engagement with Vitality in the workplace is really paying off.
“We went from quite a large proportion of people that were older than their Vitality age but that has really reduced. It shows that we’ve become a much healthier team,” Hitchcock concluded.
Healthy, happy staff can boost your business. Get business health insurance, protection and wellbeing support from Vitality. Find out more.
A version of this article originally appeared of Vitality Healthy Business Hub.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Vitality
At Vitality, we take a unique approach to insurance. As well as providing high-quality comprehensive cover, we provide a complete wellness package that can help boost employee engagement and productivity.
