The whole of IVL had fun on our walk from Stockholm to Beijing

The pandemic of 2020 required ingenuity in many areas, not least regarding the lack of contact and physical activity when working from home. The activity challenge during the autumn livened things up.

2020 has been a unique year, including at IVL. When the pandemic struck, most of our employees were asked to work from home. It is not possible for all our work to be done from home, however, as IVL’s laboratory activities mean that we have to keep our offices open.

During the spring and summer, the feeling was that working from home was working relatively well – it was a bit of a novelty. After the summer, when it became clear that we had a long, dark autumn of working from home ahead of us, IVL carried out a survey to see how working from home was going. The results were relatively positive, but showed that 41 percent of our employees tended to move about less when working from home, and that many were missing contact and interaction with their colleagues. As a result, HR and our two sports associations began to think about what we could do to increase physical activity.

We decided to conduct a classic step competition – but with a twist. We launched a competition with approximately ten people per team, with the goal being for each person to achieve 10,000 steps per day. If everyone succeeded in walking that far, the team would reach Beijing during the 42 days the activity was in progress. We also wanted to integrate social activities to create a sense of togetherness and to increase knowledge about our various offices, projects and colleagues. As a result, we launched the ‘Stockholm to Beijing’ activity challenge, in which we would walk from our office on Valhallavägen in Stockholm to our office in Beijing via all our other offices. We included various tasks and activities during the journey, and showed a film from each office so that everyone could see what they look like. Various projects were also presented along the way. Every week there were challenges that provided additional steps. These challenges were both physical, such as taking a morning or lunchtime walk, as well as of a social nature, such as having a Teams coffee with a colleague. We also incorporated activities where the individual would present their results on the intranet’s Yammer function, such as photographing a work of art during a walk. These activities produced an incredible level of commitment, comments and likes, and we have never had so many visitors to Yammer as we had during the activity challenge.

Every week we released a ‘TV show’ on the intranet, IVLSporten, during which we awarded prizes, commented on performances and showed funny films and sketches. This was a greatly appreciated feature that really lifted the whole activity. By way of conclusion, we awarded prizes to the first three teams to arrive at the destination.

Stockholm to Beijing meant that we had an activity to come together on and actually receive input from colleagues we don’t tend to talk to when we are sitting at home. The activity was much appreciated, with up to around 75 percent of our employees participating. A new survey at the end of the activity showed that more people had become more physically active, which is really good to know considering our dark and rainy autumn!

STOCKHOLM TO BEIJING - HÄNG MED PÅ RESAN MELLAN VÅRA KONTOR! Den 19 oktober startar IVL:s aktivitetsutmaning där vi sätter fokus på en aktiv vardag. Tillsammans ska vi med hjälp av aktivitet motsvarande 10 000 steg om dagen “gå” mellan våra kontor. LAGUTMANING MED KOLLEGORNA Ju fler desto roligare! Skapa lag och utmana varandra. Varje deltagare skapar en egen profil. När ni har skapat en profil kan ni gå ihop i lag, vi rekommenderar 2-8 medlemmar. SÅ HÄR REGISTRERAR NI AKTIVITET Målet är att nå en aktivitetsnivå på 10 000 steg om dagen och alla aktiviteter räknas! Deltagare kan på ett enkelt sätt registrera all sin aktivitet direkt i appen och på webben. Tappas app- Steg och vardagsaktivitet fångas automatiskt upp av appen. Deltagarna kan ladda ner tappas app i App Store och Google Play. All aktivitet som man har kopplat till Apple Hälsa och Google Fitness förs automatiskt över till Tappas app. Aktivitetstabellen - Utför man andra aktiviteter kan dessa enkelt registreras i aktivitetstabellen via appen eller tappa.se. Ni kan välja bland många olika aktiviteter. Exempel: 30 min cykling ger 3 900 steg och 30 min simning ger 6 000 steg. Fitbit, Polar eller Garmin - Integrera ditt aktivitetsarmband inne på din personliga profil så överförs stegen automatiskt. FÖLJ FRAMGÅNGEN Följ din och kollegornas framgång i vår virtuella karta med spännande stopp längs vägen. Genom att registrera all aktivitet kommer man närmare målet. Alla som deltar kommer att kunna följa varandra i topplistor och i den virtuella kartan. TÄVLINGSPERIOD: 19 OKTOBER- 29 NOVEMBER ANMÄLAN 1. Ladda ner Tappas app 2. Skapa ett konto eller logga in med ett existerande. 3. Skriv in startkoden: IVL20 För att logga in via vår hemsida gå till: www.tappa.se/reg IVL-UPPDRAG I tillägg till fysisk aktivitet kan man få extra steg genom att anta olika uppdrag. Checka in med kollegor, familjen eller vänner över ”Teams” eller ”Facetime” och belönas med steg. Ni ökar er aktivitetsnivå samtidigt som ni håller kontakten.

Frågor? Kontakta oss på Info@tappa.se

“Stockholm to Beijing meant that we had an activity to come together on and actually receive input from colleagues we don’t tend to talk to when we are sitting at home.”