Creating a healthy and more collaborative workplace is becoming increasingly important to occupiers and thus to developers too. Indeed, the creation of smart workplaces that facilitate interaction was one of the key debates at the British Council of Offices annual conference in Chicago this week.
JLL has used the redesign of its head office at 30 Warwick Street, W1, to encourage more movement and physical interaction among staff. As part of this process it has introduced a scheme called Step Jockey. Step Jockey is based on the concept of behavioural economics, which uses subconscious prompts to get people to do what you want them to do. In the case of Step Jockey, it is to get people to use the stairs more.
The company, founded by Paul Nuki and his behavioural economist wife Helen, says that using its signs to encourage people to disregard the lift and use the stairs increases step climbing by an average of 20% across the buildings in which it is present. For some companies it can be by as much as 50%.
JLL introduced the scheme last year and has recently completed one of the challenges that can be purchased as part of the Step Jockey programme. It invited employees, initially at its Warwick Street office, to climb the equivalent of Everest. More than 300 staff across the UK took part – one of the most successful engagements the firm has seen. The competition took place over a month and saw participants burn a total of 80,000 calories. A team from the agent’s Birmingham office eventually won the challenge by placing the signs at which the team had to log its steps at the top of the 10-storey block in which it is based, despite its offices being on the sixth floor.
Stair use during competitions such as the Everest Challenge can increase 500-800%.
Mark Francis, UK environmental manager at JLL, said: “I needed to find a smart way to energise JLL staff and promote health and fun in our workplace. Step Jockey effectively turned our Warwick Street HQ and a number of our regional offices into gyms. The stairs were suddenly buzzing with people on their way to meetings logging their climbs with their smartphones.”
This summer it will run a second competition, challenging employees to burn the same number of calories as the riders of the Tour de France. A Tour rider, incidentally, will burn between 6,000 and 8,000 calories a day during the three-week race. No pressure, then.
But using a scheme like Step Jockey is about more than trying to subconsciously prompt employees to be more active. It also promotes team working and can demonstrate a business’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility credentials.
“Businesses are trying to get teams to interact more,” says Nuki. “Step Jockey can help with the circulation of employees in a building. It creates mixing.”
He adds that the scheme is also being installed in buildings by facilities management teams in a bid to ease stress on lift systems and make buildings run more efficiently. The company has recently worked with Norland, now owned by CBRE, on KPMG’s building in Canary Wharf and on the iconic Lloyd’s Building in the City.
“Step Jockey really complements JLL’s sustainability agenda, Building for Tomorrow, which makes workplace wellbeing and productivity a key firm-wide consideration,” said Francis. “Taking the stairs saved us time, kept us fit, and reduced our carbon footprint, but most importantly, it was great fun.”
Nuki claims that the system can have a real financial impact on a business in terms of energy, time and health cost savings. He reckons the installation of Step Jockey, which costs between £3,000-£5,000 for signage for an average building of five storeys with two staircases, plus £3,500 per month-long challenge, or the equivalent of £1-£1.50 per employee, pays for itself the space of a year.
Although the company will not claim that a healthy workforce is a more productive workforce, numerous studies have made the link. And with working-age ill-health costing the UK economy up to £100bn a year, according to latest estimates, perhaps it is time we all took a step.
What is behavioural economics?
Behavioural economics has gained favour over the past decade or so as a cross-breed of psychology and economics.
Its purpose is to persuade the public to act in a certain way, and it can be found in use in a variety of business, health, finance and increasingly in political settings, from Number 10 to the White House.
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
