Bruntwood is a commercial property specialist led by one purpose: creating thriving cities. Headquartered in Manchester, they take old buildings and give them a new lease of life by turning them into office, coworking, retail and lab spaces.In 2023, as its benefits came into review, their Wellbeing Lead, Leanne Mullen, took the opportunity to reassess how they could take their colleague wellbeing strategy to the next level and better serve its 2,013 employees’ needs.Against the backdrop of low employee benefit engagement rates and a company-wide push for improving wellbeing, they had three goals: Finding an easy-to-roll-out wellbeing solution that people could start using straight awayImprove employees’ holistic wellbeingIncrease engagement with benefitsThe challengeAlthough Bruntwood already had a number of benefits in place, such as a health cash plan and life assurance cover, they couldn't easily get the data to show how these benefits were being used and the impact they were having on colleague wellbeing and the overall business.More importantly, as a business with workplaces at over 100 different locations, they needed easy-to-access insights into colleague activity across all workplaces. They also needed data to know the value of their benefits offering and where to focus their benefits and engagement strategy going forward.Bruntwood were also looking for a wellbeing solution that would be inclusive and accessible for all with something for everyone. They wanted to see high engagement because, despite offering a brilliant benefits package, they didn’t always see a high take-up rate. They wanted to do this by introducing a holistic wellness benefit that would make a big impact in a short space of time and support colleagues’ wellbeing in a multi-pronged way: by addressing colleagues’ physical, mental, social and financial wellbeing. That’s when their Wellbeing Lead, Leanne Mullen, came across YuLife. Why YuLife?YuLife stood out to Bruntwood as a way to really elevate their benefits offering and deliver an engaging wellbeing experience. “When we were looking for a new insurance provider, we were looking for something that was a little bit more engaging and exciting,” says Leanne.1) Easy to roll out and get employees using it straight awayThe YuLife app has been embraced by the Bruntwood team, with a whopping 68% of employees downloading it within 30 days.How was this achieved?Launch support: YuLife launch managers worked alongside their team to support them in running onboarding messaging campaigns throughout the launch phase, and this was all easily administered through the YuLife employer portal.Great user experience: The simple sign-up process and the ability for colleagues to add all their personal details, such as beneficiaries, within the easy-to-use YuLife app, kept the user experience for employees seamless and helped encourage uptake. “It was very very easy to onboard with YuLife. The invite just landed in everybody's inbox, it was really engaging and inviting. And I think that's definitely why we’ve been so successful in the number of sign-ups we’ve had” says Leanne.Gamification: YuLife's gamified approach to wellbeing through introducing daily wellness challenges encouraged friendly competition between employees. This helped generate a real buzz around the Bruntwood offices, which encouraged people to sign up in such a short time frame.And despite the app only launching a month ago, Maddi Burns-Hunt, Bruntwood’s Head of Talent notes how: “YuLife has had a massive impact on the culture already.” 2) Have a measurable impact on employees’ holistic wellbeingIn just 3 months, Bruntwood’s employee wellbeing score increased from 7.16 to 7.89 with the introduction of YuLife!Through YuLife, Bruntwood colleagues were rewarded for participating in simple wellness activities from walking and workouts to brain training and meditation within the YuLife app.However, they didn’t fully anticipate the extent to which their new benefit would resonate with colleagues until it launched. After just 4 months of having YuLife, colleagues’ average daily steps increased by 11% to 8,347 (more than double the UK average of 3,500!) with 42% of employees practising mindfulness – something that is only set to increase as more employees download the app. Introducing YuLife enabled Bruntwood to not only boost all-round employee wellbeing, but gain valuable data insights into the physical, mental and social wellbeing of their colleagues through the YuLife HR portal.The YuLife HR portal gave the Bruntwood team access to an advanced analytics dashboard that gives them a clear overview of the metrics that matter across all pillars of wellbeing, including their engagement in wellbeing activities such as daily steps and mindfulness minutes.They are now also able to have a holistic view of their employees’:Physical wellbeing: Through looking at employee activity levels, they could observe behavioural trends in activity levels and action on them.Mental wellbeing: They could observe overall trends in meditation or brain-training, or even track VGP or EAP usage levels to check in on their colleagues’ mental wellbeing.Financial wellbeing: Through looking at the spending trends of their employees: whether most spent their YuCoin on groceries (like Sainsbury’s, Tesco or M&S), or spent it on charity donations.ESG: Through charity reward redemption, they could see how their team is positively impacting global social and environmental issues and track employee activity on ESG goals.These HR insights have given Bruntwood a real edge when it comes to understanding their employee wellbeing data and demonstrating the impact of YuLife on their people and the business. “I am obsessed with the HR portal, I look at it all the time!” says Leanne. 3) Increase engagement with benefitsWhatsmore, the introduction of YuLife has had a knock-on effect on Bruntwood’s benefits usage more generally. Through YuLife’s in-app Wellbeing Hub, colleagues have access to a one-stop-shop with direct links to all of their new and existing employee benefits, policies, tools and services. Plus, the new increased focus on wellbeing has driven employees to engage more with other wellness related benefits, such as their cycle to work scheme and yoga classes.“YuLife has impacted the uptake of all our other benefits as well, so things like the cycle to work scheme that we’ve got, we’ve seen more people wanting to get on their bike. We’ve seen people using our discounts platform that we offer, we’ve had more people attending the yoga classes. It’s been all-round positive and we’ve seen improvements everywhere” says Leanne.The results In just 4 months, the introduction of YuLife has had a huge positive impact, through their quarterly employee surveys, they found that: Overall Health & Wellbeing increased by 4% Active Days increased by 5%Sleep Satisfaction increased by 6% Mental Wellbeing increased by 10%“I’ve definitely seen a shift in the focus that people are placing on their own wellbeing. There’s been such a good uptake from all of the colleagues around the business, and I think it's really driving collaboration as well” says Maddi.Want to find out more about YuLife? Get in touch with us here!