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Via an inclusive and fun team-based challenge - Get Primed - bringing together Amazonians across Europe and complemented by expert content and weekly themes to drive engagement across physical, social and mental wellbeing.
Amazon, the e-commerce giant with over 1.3 million employees worldwide, continually seeks to improve prioritizing the mental health of its diverse workforce, as well as cultivating a work culture that promotes openness, support and wellbeing for employees, by utilising innovative solutions to enhance employees mental health support.
Physical activity has many benefits for our mental wellbeing - regular exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression and negative mood, boosting physical and mental energy and by improving self-esteem and cognitive function. The EU Wellness Team at Amazon joined forces with GoJoe to launch a team fitness challenge – Get Primed - as part of a new “Wellness Workstream”, with dedicated wellness events, challenges and resources to support their employees.
The Amazonians racked up thousands of activities across 32 different activity types, including dancing and skiing, during the 26-day extravaganza, despite their annual Prime Day (and one of the busiest periods on the Amazon calendar) falling right in the middle of the challenge. 👏🏽
Through GoJoe, Amazon staff exercised on their own, but were not alone. Participants across Europe created or joined teams in the challenge (in this event, it was up to fifteen members per team), promoting a sense of camaraderie and teamwork.
Get Primed wasn't focussed on topping the leaderboards; it was about teamwork, encouragement, mutual motivation and finding the fun in fitness.
There were awards and prizes along the way, adding a touch of friendly competition to the mix.
Every point and every effort counted, regardless of whether participants were an 'ordinary joe' or an elite athlete. Each team had their own private chat group in-app to communicate, as well as a wider challenge chat group for all participants.
The attention wasn't all on the podium positions - there were also a range of rewards and incentives up for grabs across the board, including a weekly photo competition and fun awards such as the ‘Eager Beaver’ and the ‘Woodpecker’. Using gamification, data and a world class app, employees connected and engaged from across Europe.
Participants could choose from more than 40 different sports and exercises, offering something for everyone.
The Amazonians logged over 3,300 activities in total including surfing, sailing, baseball, volleyball, pickle ball and netball amongst their more popular activity types of running, cycling, HIIT, strength and walking. We also noticed a lot of cycling as a means of commuting into the office, and after-work tennis matches. 🎾 🚴🏽
Each activity earned points, automatically weighted to ensure fairness and logged via one of three easy ways (via wearables, GPS tracker or manual input). This system ensured that everyone had an equal chance of contributing to their team's success, regardless of their chosen activity, fitness level and whether they had a fitness wearable or not. Get Primed also ran a team average challenge format, further levelling the playing field for teams of varying sizes.
“Joined GoJoe's team challenge and I've never felt more inspired to move!”
“Feeling optimistic that I will carry my new habits forward and keep consistent with exercise.”
“Getting outside a lot more these last few weeks, feeling much clearer headed now."
"May need some new trainers now!"
“Loved the different topics covered in this challenge.”
“Making time to exercise more this challenge has helped me be more productive."
""Taking on the GoJoe challenge with coworkers; best bonding experience ever!"
"GoJoe has turned the great outdoors into my favorite gym — nothing beats moving under the open sky!"
By running a short pilot challenge earlier this year and actively encouraging feedback, employees felt involved and invested in the wider overall experience.
GoJoe and Amazon are now expanding the relationship across multiple geographies.
We collected specific data points at the onboarding stage (namely the region and line manager of each participant) and supplied this data to Amazon in real-time, allowing them to tailor support to specific regions where necessary. We created bespoke welcome videos and resources to further enhance the branded experience in-app.
GoJoe's methodical planning and nimbleness played a pivotal role. With clear timelines, weekly sprint calls with project leads from Amazon and the ability to react to user feedback quickly and efficiently, everyone was kept aligned and ahead of the game.
Via the library of on-demand workouts and expert-led content, 1-2-1 consultations, nutritional support and ambassadors across all pillars of wellbeing, GoJoe can be used as a one-off event platform or as an all-year-round one stop shop for wellbeing and engagement.
We engaged Amazon’s employees early on. By pre-releasing teasers via Amazon’s own internal platforms (as well as putting together a dedicated GoJoe area on the Amazon intranet) and hosting a virtual ‘opening ceremony’, we created a buzz and built pre-event excitement.
We involved Amazon’s team in our challenge communication strategy, ensuring messaging was relevant, on-brand and engaging to the employee. As a fast-paced environment with frequent communication points, it was important for Amazon that all comms deployed were kept to a need-to-know basis (as opposed to nice-to-know ☺️).
All messaging had a clear purpose (via email, app notifications, pop ups and chat group channels). We had zero user queries for troubleshooting/issues during this challenge.
The challenge maintained its momentum with weekly themes and prizes, uniting the community and keeping engagement levels high. Themes centered around the four GoJoe pillars of wellbeing – Move, Fuel, Rest and Feel, with bitesize pieces of relevant expert content weaved into the in-app experience – covering topics such as gut health, sleep hygiene, guided meditations, mental wellbeing and self-care.
We rounded off the event in style with a full breakdown in our signature ‘match report’ email, and by hosting a virtual closing ceremony to announce all the winners, prizes, outstanding achievements and shout outs - as well as recognise efforts and celebrate all participants. Coupled with a comprehensive data report for internal stakeholders at Amazon which communicated all the key stats, results, trends and outcomes of the challenge.
Amazon has a fantastic culture of innovation and constantly evolving its own systems and processes, something we witnessed first-hand working with the Amazon wellness team. Together we created a post-event survey to capture key sentiments of the employee experience and refine future requirements across all areas of wellbeing at Amazon. This bespoke survey was promoted in-app via pop-ups and targeted notifications to maximise visibility and completion rates.
Mental wellbeing is an important topic, I am so happy Amazon is providing us this programme and building wider awareness.
Get Primed was a refreshing approach to proactive wellbeing, embedding positive habits and raising awareness across all areas of wellbeing via the GoJoe annual offering. Through the inclusive, friendly and fun experience of Get Primed, employees created their own sub-community celebrating exercise and all the many benefits it provides.