‘We’ve become a much healthier team’ – Geolytix share their story
We caught up with location planning consultancy firm Geolytix to find out how a small business is championing employee wellbeing and really seeing the benefits
Founded in 2011, Geolytix provides location planning data and consultancy services, counting major household names such as Asda, Dominos and M&S among its clients.
With a growing number of employees and offices in eight countries, for cofounder and COO Sarah Hitchcock it’s been important to nonetheless maintain a “small team feel”, and a strong culture of wellbeing.
“One of our values is people,” she says, “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”, she adds.
‘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,” says Sarah.
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,” Sarah explains.
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‘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, Sarah says, “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 adds.
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 points out.
“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, whilst 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, with employee Matt Shaw describing 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 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,” Sarah concludes.
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