How Windrose Walked From Berlin to Tokyo During Its Well-Being Weeks

Windrose made a YuMuuv Steps Challenge the highlight of its summer well-being weeks. Together, the team walked the distance from its Berlin headquarters to Tokyo.

At a glance

Company	Windrose, a travel company specializing in luxury travel, headquartered in Berlin
Interviewee	Heike Marks, Head of HR
Program	Steps Challenge, the highlight of Windrose’s well-being weeks in July and August
Well-being weeks	Physical activity, nutrition, mental health and ergonomic working
Format	Mixed teams from different departments, with team results only on the leaderboard
Together	The whole team walked the distance from Berlin to Tokyo

Background: well-being weeks with a step challenge at the center

As part of its employee engagement initiative, Windrose held well-being weeks in July and August, focused on physical activity, nutrition, mental health and ergonomic working. The goal was to help employees build more movement into their everyday lives.

Heike Marks, Head of HR, already knew YuMuuv from her previous company, where it had been a success. When she brought the idea to Windrose’s employee engagement group, the Crew Committee, they liked it straight away, and everyone was on board from launch.

The challenge: built around teams

Mixed teams. Colleagues from different departments formed teams together, connecting people who don’t usually work side by side.

Team results only. Windrose chose to show team results rather than individual step counts. Heike valued how flexible YuMuuv was in setting this up.

Easy to run. Setup was very easy, and the YuMuuv team answered the many questions Windrose had in advance. Heike used announcements to reach everyone, by email and through notifications on their phones.

Results: more steps, more team spirit

Employees found new ways to move, like getting off the subway one stop early and walking the rest of the way. Lunch breaks and evenings turned into group walks, and one colleague told Heike she skipped a night on the sofa with Netflix and went for a walk instead, because she didn’t want to let her team down.

Windrose’s team is usually not especially competitive, but some teams were. The top three teams pushed each other hard, especially in the final days, to finish at the top of the table.

Travel being the company’s business, the stories came from all over:

• One employee walked laps of a ship’s deck to hit her daily steps
• A colleague hiking in the mountains without internet saw all his steps appear in the app a day later, giving his team a sudden boost
• Another colleague on a city tour in Japan logged around 25,000 to 30,000 steps a day

By the end, the whole team had walked the equivalent of Berlin to Tokyo. For some, it was the start of a bigger change: one colleague who walked on a walking pad at home said the challenge made her want to become healthier and move more in general.

Looking ahead

Employees loved the challenge and are looking forward to doing something similar next year. Even colleagues who didn’t take part were sorry to have missed it and plan to join next time.

I would definitely recommend it, as it brings people together.

— Heike Marks, Head of HR, Windrose