Walk for wellbeing
Walking the whole way around the world thirty-two times is a tough call, but Diageo managed it in twelve weeks – with 1,500 employees across Europe and North America creating 253 teams to walk over 10,000 steps per day between them.
Diageo launched this health initiative to raise fitness and improve health and wellbeing simply by encouraging employees to walk more as they go about their daily activities. Using pedometers each team was able to measure the total number of steps that they took each day. The result was that at the end of the week they could see how far each team had walked in total.
The results were astonishing. Over twelve weeks the 253 teams taking part clocked up a colossal 808,254 miles between them – the distance to the moon and back and to the moon again, with some left over. The teams were helped by a bit of competition: at the end of each week, leader boards were published revealing which team had walked the farthest.
But it was the results for people’s health that really mattered. Both medical reports and feedback from the participants showed that they felt better and more energised after the competition, and many have said that they’re going to keep on walking, even without a competitive incentive.