Martin Forslund, CEO and co-founder of Wellr, tell us why you have developed a web-based health system to counter ill health?
“Our focus is on helping employees become healthier. Many of the most common diseases in the Western world are related to our lifestyle, and a lot can be prevented with relatively simple means. In addition, almost half of all employees do not have a sufficient oxygen uptake capacity to manage being effective for a full working day. We discovered that despite this, a great many employers were working reactively with health issues, doing one-off efforts and putting out fires. We want to change the perspective and start working earlier, before people have had time to become ill.
But how do you go about this in practice?
We have taken the concept of health, something that used to be quite vague, and made it concrete and measurable. We have to measure health in the workplace; if we don’t know where we are, it’s impossible to know where we’re going. In this way, efforts can be made in the right place and we avoid shooting in the dark and guessing. Our focus is not on how many people are on sick leave; we want to know how many may be at risk of becoming ill in the future, so that we can create a lifestyle change in time.
You talk about lifestyle change – how do you achieve that?
Research shows that to create a lifestyle change, the individual must become aware of their situation. You also need continuous reminders; a single assessment is not enough. Wellr creates a personal health profile for every employee; they also receive their own tailored health plans in the area or areas where they need to make a change, and the employer receives an overview analysis and the possibility to follow up over time.
We give individuals the results, the tools and the motivation to actually create change. One way to really motivate staff is through our competitions and challenges. Companies can, for example, challenge their employees to stand up at work; employees can also compete against each other in a variety of health challenges. We find that this has really created a positive culture in the companies we work with, where health is something that truly matters to them.
What is unique about the Wellr app?
There are many different things that make Wellr unique. But one important aspect is that it requires very little or no administration to manage, and that the system is constantly evolving. As health research develops, the system develops at the same pace. When the Swedish Work Environment Authority introduced its new guidelines for the work environment last year, we implemented a way to systematically measure and evaluate the organizational and social work environment in line with the current guidelines.
Finally, how do you view the future?
I’m very optimistic about the future. I know that Wellr represents the future and that all companies will have to work more proactively going forward. Ill health is perhaps the biggest brake on profitability, and when the hundred largest companies in Sweden lose close to SEK 80 billion every year, it is, to me, incomprehensible that it has been allowed to go this far. In the past, it has been extremely expensive to work preventively against ill health, but through the Wellr service there is now a cost-effective solution on the market, and in my view that leaves no room for excuses. Healthy employees start at work!”
