Sportland Case Study: How a Sports Retailer Got 75% of Employees Moving

Sportland sells sportswear and leisurewear across the Baltics – so you might expect its employees to be active already. But keeping more than 400 people in stores and offices engaged all year is a different challenge. With a year-round YuMuuv challenge program, Sportland set out to reach 50% participation and ended up with more than 75%. Here is how they did it.

At a Glance

• Company: Sportland, a sportswear and leisurewear retailer operating in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for more than 25 years, with e-commerce in Finland and Poland
• Team: 400+ employees in Estonia, most of them in stores
• Program: a year-long "sports year" with monthly challenges and live events
• Goal: 50% participation
• Result: more than 75% of employees took part, with engagement that stayed steady through the year

Background

Sportland's mission is to improve young people's lives through the products it sells, and the company has long encouraged an active lifestyle among its own employees. It already organized sports activities for staff, but wanted a platform that would make participation easier to join, track and keep going.

The Challenge

• Participation: raise engagement across stores and offices, not just among the sportiest employees.
• Less manual work: stop collecting and combining activity data from different sources by hand.
• Long-term motivation: keep people involved all year rather than in short bursts.

Why Sportland Chose YuMuuv

After comparing several providers, Sportland chose YuMuuv for its wide range of activity tracking, automatic data collection and reporting, the ability to run varied challenges throughout the year, a user-friendly app, responsive support and the flexibility to work for both small and large teams.

How the Program Worked

The original plan was to focus on a different sport each month, but that proved hard to run consistently. Sportland switched to monthly challenges that measured individual activity from different angles – which kept things varied without becoming complicated. Alongside the app, the company organized live events and team-building activities, combining digital tracking with real-world experiences.

What Made It Work

1. Realistic challenges: goals were achievable and designed for every fitness level. See how to design challenges for everyone.
2. Rewards for everyone who reached the goal: instead of rewarding only the top performers, Sportland ran a prize draw among all participants who met the challenge goal.
3. Built into store life and onboarding: new employees were introduced to the sports year from their first days, so movement became part of the work environment.
4. Regular communication: updates in internal Facebook groups and other channels shared upcoming challenges, standings and success stories.

Results

• More than 75% participation, well above the 50% goal.
• Steady engagement through the year – a sign that people enjoyed the challenges rather than seeing them as an obligation.
• New activities discovered: the variety helped employees try sports they hadn't considered before.

Lessons Learned: Store Managers Make the Difference

Top management supported the program, but the biggest factor at store level was the store manager. Stores with involved managers had clearly higher participation. Sportland therefore plans to make movement and wellbeing part of managers' responsibilities and leadership training.

Feedback and Next Steps

Sportland valued YuMuuv's continuous development, especially the announcements feature. As next steps they suggested letting users react to announcements for more two-way communication, and making it even easier to connect smartwatches and fitness bands. (YuMuuv syncs with Apple Health, Health Connect, Garmin, Fitbit, Polar, Suunto and many other devices – see device integrations.)

Sportland's plans include:

• a broader sports calendar with more varied activities;
• challenges for different groups – beginners, competitive athletes and mindfulness-focused participants;
• recognition for engaged employees and teams;
• expanding the program from Estonia to its Latvian and Lithuanian teams for a cross-border challenge.

Key Takeaways for Retail and Multi-Site Companies

1. Set a realistic participation goal – and design challenges so everyone can succeed.
2. Reward everyone who reaches the goal, for example with a prize draw – see the rewards guide.
3. Involve local managers; they drive participation in their teams.
4. Make it part of onboarding so new employees join from day one.
5. Combine the app with live events for a real culture of movement.

A strong wellness culture also helps keep people – read why wellness culture keeps people from leaving. For other frontline examples, see Alexela and our guide to wellness for deskless workers. More stories: case studies. Book a demo to plan your own sports year.