Healthy Profits

More than half of UK companies now have a wellness strategy, designed to keep employees fit, happy and crucially productive. But do they have your best interests at heart? Or is this simply a smart way to stretch their human resources? MH investigates the complex world of workplace wellness

- Jamie Millar

IT’S MIDDAY ON A SUNNY THURSDAY IN JUNE and a few employees at the Technogym Village in Cesena, Italy, are setting out for a lunchtime run. Not that they need to step outside the 150,000-squaremetre “wellness campus” to get their daily fitness fix – the facility is widely regarded as the healthiest head offie in the world. Through the main entrance and to the right is the T-Wellness Centre: the staff gym and spa. It also doubles as the design-conscious fitness equipment manufacturer’s showroom.Spread over two wood-and-glass storeys and looking out over a verdant park, the salon-cum-gym is bountifully stocked with machines, free weights and rigs. Taking advantage of the equipment – and their two-hour lunch break – employees hop on indoor bikes, treadmills and rowers to compete with colleagues, their scores broadcast on big screens. Technogym has full-time personal trainers on its books, but it encourages other staff members to become “wellness ambassadors” by fronting classes. The Village’s facility manager teaches t’ai chi.

After working out, staff members eat in the T-Wellness Restaurant, where a locally sourced three-course lunch – for example, passatelli (a variety of pasta native to northern Italy) with tomato and rocket, cod fillet with parsley and lemon, and grilled courgette – costs €1. This nominal fee is imposed to dissuade employees from taking too much free food and wasting it. Outside the restaurant, workers sip espressos at standing tables, which may be less about wellness than simply traditionally Italian, but every bit of physical activity helps. In the offies, they sit on “wellness balls”; on the factory floor, they bask in natural light. Production ceases an hour early during the summer, so people have time to go to the beach.