Two and a half years ago, as Catalyst was launching, the world was experiencing a global pandemic unlike anything most of us have or will see in our lifetimes. The world had become a strange, unfamiliar place and most people’s work routines were flipped upside down. Corporate environments and cultures were put to the test, and the norm, as we all knew it changed. One undeniable outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic however was people’s focus on health and being active. It was a phenomenon that started in the living room, the dining room, or the garden, and as people returned to offices it is now a big part of the workplace.
When the Catalyst Group was founded, employee wellness, fostering healthy living, and creating an environment that encouraged everyone to be active was at the core of what we set out to achieve. This ambition and focus was apparent both during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, but as things have returned to ‘normal’ it has been harder to maintain.
At Catalyst we place a huge amount of importance on employee wellbeing, but up until recently, this was all via words in a handbook and by the firm contributing financially towards gym memberships or wellness activities. We felt that there was more we could do to support the team and to understand how we were doing. Enter Strove!
As of September 1st, the founders of Catalyst have taken it upon themselves to fund a new partnership with Strove – A health and well-being application that focuses on exercise, mental health, sleep and much more. From the 1st of the month all Catalyst employees were given the opportunity to access the Strove platform and join Catalyst’s global health and wellbeing community. The application consolidates data from a wide range of fitness, activity, and mindfulness applications as well as in-app ‘check-in surveys’ to allow employees to better understand whether they are thriving or merely surviving. It provides tools such as guided breathwork exercises, meditations, sleep scapes, workouts, and yoga sessions to help users take the next step with their health and wellbeing journeys. It also allows people to score points for these activities that contribute to a companywide leaderboard where they can compete against their fellow Circle members (based on what we have seen so far, the team are already very competitive). The points also count towards achieving personal goals and unlocking rewards and prizes that can be redeemed through a wide variety of vendors including – Amazon, Uber, Starbucks and many more.
Providing our employees with the tools to keep themselves healthy, whilst also being able to reward them for doing so is a crucial aspect of our aim of ensuring that everyone who works for Catalyst sees it as more than just a workplace, but as an environment that looks after their well-being and rewards them for doing so.
We would like to thank the team at Strove for the partnership and for the amazing work thus far.
