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magazine
38
The market for health and fitness
technology is booming, with a 25%
increase in health-related
exhibitors at the 2013
International CES consumer
electronics show taking place in Las
Vegas in January. Much of this growth is
driven by a combination of smartphone
apps and wearable devices that
monitor, track and record fitness data.
Not all solutions are so high tech.
Finnish company Heia Heia may have
adopted a web-based social media
model to encourage people to improve
their fitness, but its ethos is rooted in
the timeless virtues of mutual support,
encouragement – and honesty. The only
equipment needed to join in is some
form of timepiece to measure how long
you have exercised and an internet
connection to update your exercise log.
At its simplest, the free social web
service allows an individual to keep an
exercise diary that they can keep private
or share online so that friends and family
can swap fitness tips, cheer achievements
and provide support.
This is more or less how Heia Heia
was conceived by CEO and co-founder
Jussi Raisanen, who came up with the
idea when he was working in Singapore
and a friend based in London suggested
they both run a marathon. The platform
he developed started out as a means of
providing mutual encouragement and
motivation to train and this is how many
still use it today.
“People liked what we created and it
took off from there. Now, we have 5%
of the working population of Finland
using the service to keep track of health
activities and share them with others.
You don’t have to share information if
you don’t want to, but it is very powerful
when you do tell friends and family about
exercise because they can challenge you,”
explains Raisanen.
Corporate interest
Heia Heia’s success soon attracted
the interest of business and dozens of
organisations in Finland now use it to
encourage staff to take more exercise.
“We noticed early that a number
of organisations had concerns about
employees’ well-being. Sick leave costs a
lot and much could be prevented if people
took better care of themselves. Physical
activity is one of the ways to reduce sick
days – it is easy to communicate, social
and practical.We are not talking about
dieting or losing weight but something
that is easy to share,” says Raisanen.
“Heia Heia is very simple to use and
it doesn’t cost a lot to bring into use, but
the impact is tangible: if even 1-2% of
people change their habits and exercise
more it pays off.”
Heia Heia’s corporate version allows
an organisation to create groups, set
objectives (e.g. to collectively run 1,000
miles) and stage competitions between
different teams/departments/offices,
but Raisanen says the emphasis is still
on fun: “It is designed to be a fun social
media activity, not a big, corporate HR
programme.”
It supports 400 different activities and
has a meter for converting hours spent
Health & Fitness
No pressure, honest
playing football or swimming, say, into
miles that can count towards a distance-
based goal.
“If you use the personal service it’s
mainly about you and your friends, your
statistics, goals and preferred type of
exercise: it’s a personal thing. But the
corporate version takes individual data
and visualises it and displays it in a
summarised, anonymous form,” explains
Raisanen. “The company version can dig
deeper into statistics and look at how
many hours on average people exercise
over specific time periods, so you can see
how wellness programs are working.”
It also separates personal and
corporate views so that an individual can
keep their diary private yet still contribute
to group targets. Another advantage of
this approach is that if someone changes
employer they retain access to their
personal exercise history.
Honest approach
One of the interesting aspects of Heia
Heia’s approach is that it relies on people
to be honest about the amount of
exercise they do.
“You could cheat the system because
people are sharing and blogging their
exercise,” says Raisanen. “But it doesn’t
happen often. Over the whole programme,
we see that employers aren’t so interested
in monitoring individual hours put in
because what happens then is that the
active people will always win and the
inactive won’t be motivated to take part.”
As it is, Heia Heia’s light touch appears
to be effective: “People start to see what
people do in their spare time and begin
to talk about exercise a lot more, so you
create a new discourse around physical
activity in the company. One customer
with 3,000 employees told us that over
half who completed its campaign had
increased their activity in a sustained way.
Five months after the campaign, they were
exercising two hours more per week.”
Heia Heia’s next challenge is to
analyse all the data it has accumulated
to uncover hard facts about the effect
of exercise on sick days taken. In the
meantime, thousands more office workers
and individuals will use the platform
to improve their personal fitness and
encourage friends, family and colleagues
to do the same.
Prices start at £75 a month for a company
of up to 25 people. For companies with
larger workforces, costs work out at
between £1 and £2 per employee, per
month depending on the number of
employees.
www.heiaheia.com/corporate
The Heia Heia Effect
The corporate employee
A Heia Heia user employed by Mogul, an IT company with
offices in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Belgrade, explains
how workers take inspiration from their colleagues.
“I think the attitude towards training has changed
in a positive way. More people try to take advantage of
everyday opportunities to get exercise.We walk or take the
bike instead of taking the car or bus, if the weather is fine
and you’re not in a hurry. You don’t need to go to the gym
to exercise. Heia Heia gives all users insight into co-workers’
and friends’ training activities, which can give new ideas
and also new knowledge about our co-workers interests.
It’s both inspiring and fun and gives us new things to talk
about around the coffee machine and lunch room!”
Could sharing your exercise diary
with colleagues be the motivation
you need to improve your
personal fitness?
Jussi Raisanen,
Ceo and
co-founder,
Heia Heia