Through working with YuLife, Severn Trent was able to boost employee engagement significantly with their benefits, while health and wellbeing efforts skyrocketed in one year: 35% have downloaded the app (and climbing!)35% increase in average daily steps3x increase in meditationWho is Severn Trent? Severn Trent is one of Britain's largest water companies. With 7,000 people distributed in 120 locations, they provide clean drinking water to over 8 million people each day. Not only are they highly dedicated to improving the communities around Britain, but they are focused on sustainability, clearing pollution from local water reserves – and reducing their impact on the environment as an organisation.Ranked as one of Glassdoor's top 50 places to work in the UK in 2019.As an employer, Severn Trent is as generous as it is large – and in 2019, it was ranked as one of Glassdoor's top 50 places to work in the UK. “When I look through all of the different services and benefits that they offer, I’m absolutely blown away,” says Alexandra Pugh, YuLife’s Customer Success Lead.“In my experience, a lot of companies view benefits and services almost as a tick box exercise to attract and retain staff. But Severn Trent is really committed to not only making sure benefits are available, but that staff are actually utilising them.”The problem: A scattered workforceBecause Severn Trent is made up of a group of companies located all around the country, it makes it harder to build a cohesive culture throughout teams. Employees can be in the office, on-site at water plants, or simply on the road, with limited access to work emails.With a company layout like this, it’s more difficult for its people leaders to ensure everyone is aware of Severn Trent’s employee benefits and, most importantly, that they're making the most of them.That’s where YuLife comes in.The solutionWe spoke with Renu Birla, Senior Award and Benefits Advisor at Severn Trent about the decision to start working with YuLife back in 2021. “We already have a wide range of wellbeing benefits in place, from EAP services to financial wellbeing tools and YuLife’s proactive approach to empowering our people impressed,” said Renu. Not only were they attracted to YuLife’s insurance proposition, but the support available to drive engagement and improve health and wellbeing.“A lot of people want to improve their health and wellbeing, and we all know that it can be a struggle to start or keep things going," says Renu. "YuLife’s behavioural change driven quests with easily accessible SMART health services, allows employees to remove some of those barriers and effect change at a pace that works for them. It can be fun too for those choosing to ‘duel’ with colleagues for bragging rights.”YuLife spent a lot of time working with the communications team at Severn Trent. It was a collaborative partnership approach, reveals Alex: “We needed to work out what would be best for their population and what we were trying to achieve together, and from that create a tailored plan.”That plan would see YuLife supporting Severn Trent with a host of initiatives to get the message out to the dispersed workforce.1) Reaching workers on-locationWhile virtual explainers would work for staff that were desk-based, a more enterprising solution was needed to reach operatives out in the field. “We agreed to do a roadshow to Severn Trent's key sites, where we would have a stand and be able to bring the services to life.”Alex explains: “It’s an ongoing collaborative relationship and there’s something going on at least once a month as a minimum."2) Educating to increase engagement “We’ve attended team meetings and we know about campaigns that they’re running, and where we can support those,” says Alex. “For Severn Trent’s ‘green month’, for example, we’re going to be carrying out a focus campaign related to how many trees they’ve purchased as YuLife members. We’re also about to embark on some ‘Did Yu know?’ messaging, where we can spotlight services in a different way. With YuLife’s Virtual Doctor, for example, it could be ‘Did you know about the second medical opinion?’"3) Creating healthy competitionYuLife is also in the process of applying anonymised Severn Trent ‘directorate’ tags to user data from the app, which will enable the launch of additional leaderboards and competitions.“We really want to create that buzz and get people moving more, and creating a competition between the organisation’s directorates will really drive a sense of community,” says Alex.Measuring successSo, the big question: has it been working? Considering it’s been less than a year since the app was launched at Severn Trent, an impressive 35% of the group’s workforce have already downloaded the app. “We’re seeing a really strong climb on these figures, so we anticipate the growth to continue,” says Alex.It’s not just the number of downloads that’s increasing, but the engagement levels too. “The average number of daily steps per user is massively escalating,” Alex says. “It’s gone from 5,724 steps to 7,722. There’s enough evidence to show that it’s having a real impact on their physical activity.”“It can be quite challenging to encourage what you would traditionally call ‘blue collar’ workers to meditate, but we’ve been working to break down some of the stigma and misconceptions around that.”The percentage of active users who are choosing to meditate has skyrocketed as well. “If you consider that the diverse demographic user base of the app is growing, then you’d perhaps expect to see the proportion of users who are meditating to decrease. But we’ve gone from 4% in August last year to 12% this year – a three times increase."With a continued programme of roadshows and further initiatives – such as enlisting YuLife ‘champions’ in different parts of the business to help with peer-to-peer education about the app and benefits – the partnership is set to inspire employees even more.As Kevin McNulty from Severn Trent says in this Trustpilot review:Want to find out how YuLife can work with your business? Find out more about how we're engaging teams, and delivering results here.