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Express Listen: Wellness Activities for Commercial Buildings

June 25, 2018

Wellness in commercial buildings is trending. Christoph Trappe talks to Jeff Stirling from Fitspot Wellness about what’s taking over.

Employee wellness in commercial buildings is trending for facilities managers and building owners. Christoph Trappe is on the frontlines at the 2018 BOMA International Expo in San Antonio, Texas. He is seeing this evolution of wellness in the workplace on the expo floor and he speaks with Jeff Stirling from Fitspot Wellness.

Find out what Jeff has to say about how companies across the country are utilizing this idea of happiness and health at work.

Or read the transcript below:

Christoph: Hey everyone, Christoph Trappe here with Buildings Media and I’m at the BOMA Conference in San Antonio. And I’ll be joined here in a couple minutes by Jeff Stirling. He is with Fitspot Wellness, based in Atlanta. And thanks for being on the show.

Jeff: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Christoph: And one of the topics we’re talking about today is how wellness in commercial buildings, so there’s some interesting trends. And I was walking around the show earlier and there is more and more fitness exhibitors. And a few years ago, that really wasn’t the case. We didn’t see people selling treadmills or trying to help facility managers and building owners do that. So Jeff’s company here, they have a technology solution, they’ll work with you to get fitness activities…

Jeff: Wellness. Mm-hmm.

Christoph: …into your building. Wellness activities. And of course, he can talk about that a little bit more. But what’s the trend we’re seeing out there?

Jeff: Sure.

Christoph: Why is this even something people are talking about?

Jeff: Sure. I think that in the market now, people have a demand to be healthier. And when you are providing certain things and competing with people like WeWork, who offer amenities with wellness solutions, they have to now get down to their level and figure out how to retain clients, and how to keep tenants onboard and how to keep them happy.

So, by providing Yoga, by meditation, with on-site workout classes, or teaching people about how to be better outside of the office as well as inside the office, these are all things that are now required to get the top companies to come into your building and continue to stay in your building.

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Christoph: So this is not just like multi-residential facilities, right? Like what kind of facilities are we talking about?

Jeff: Sure. So we work with companies like “We work” and we provide their wellness solution. You work with companies like JLL and CPRE and Cushman Wakefield. And then we also work with companies like Kabbage and companies like Vanco Payments who just want to offer this to their employees, and then also with the property management groups that want to offer this to their tenants.

Christoph: So, the excuse that you can’t exercise because you have to drive half a mile down the road has gone out the window?

Jeff: Exactly. So, this keeps people on site and it keeps them happier and healthier at the same time.

Christoph: So one thing that always evolves so quickly is technology, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Christoph: So how do you tie everything together with technology nowadays?

Jeff: Sure. So, we have a wellness management tool that keeps all that together online. Basically, we manage that for the tenants, for the clients and everything is sort of brought in house.

All the competitions that they’re doing, all of the workouts that they’re doing is all being tracked digitally and keeping it all together in one place, so that everybody knows what’s going on. You can look to your partner and say, “Hey I’ve been doing this as well. You should get out there and do this.” And it brings that competitiveness out of people and it keeps departments together.

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Christoph: And I can vouch that competitiveness actually works. And I haven’t gone this deep with any of the companies that I’ve worked with, but we have had a walking challenge.

Jeff: Yep.

Christoph: And everybody is walking and walking and they have walking meetings…

Jeff: Yep.

Christoph: …in the park so they all could get their steps in. And then they wouldn’t walk with the people on other teams…

Jeff: Yeah.

Christoph: …because they didn’t want them to get the steps. So this is another step, right?

Jeff: Exactly.

Christoph: You can actually now workout inside the building.

Jeff: Exactly. And we actually integrate with wearables. So companies like Fitbit, we actually integrate with that, so it goes into our wellness tool. So you can set competitions and walking challenges like you’re talking about.

We work with another company and it’s a zombie-walking challenge, so it engages millennials, and it keeps them going on. It’s like Pokémon Go for fitness. So you get excited, and you get out there and you work your butt off. And you compete with individuals, and at the same time, you’re healthy and happy.

Christoph: Yeah. It definitely works, the competitiveness.

So guys, that’s all I have from this topic from BOMA in San Antonio 2018.

About the Author

Christoph Trappe | Former Chief Content Officer

Christoph Trappe, a top 25 content marketer and author, was the former chief content officer at Stamats Communications, the parent company of BUILDINGS.

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