Global Corporate Challenge – Rockline and Oakland International Go Head to Head
Midlands firms, Redditch-based Oakland International and Rockline Industries, are participating in a Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) bid to walk around the world in 16-weeks.
With the Earth’s circumference measuring 40,075km, the friendly competition has helped ignite inter-company rivalry, directly benefitting daily team ‘step’ results as they reached the half way point.
David Hoey, HR and Purchasing Director at Oakland International stated: “It’s been fantastic to witness the healthy inter-company competition, which is infectious and leads to improved engagement at work. Feedback from all team members continues to be extremely positive; helping them all too easily break the recommended 10,000 steps per day we should be taking and encouraging all teams to keep stepping in order to beat the competition. We have always valued building relationships, both with our colleagues within the company and with our local community, this initiative really meets both of these.
“Creating positive rivalry between the two companies has also helped to promote a level of healthy activity, with teams monitoring the amount of steps each person and team takes per day, the long-term hope is that it will encourage us all to continue to ‘walk’ long after the challenge is over. In addition Oakland is donating a free lunch every month to the top team, and the team with the most steps done by the end of the challenge, will also win a Free day trip to a venue of their choice!”
With each of the seven teams circumnavigating the world, together the collaborative effort has meant that they have walked 1.3 times around the globe in just 53 days, with Oakland International currently ranked globally at 204 whilst Rockline Industries is gathering momentum in 690th position. With over 26,000 teams joining in across the world this is no small achievement for the Redditch businesses.
Tangible results seen across teams include improved inter-departmental interaction, teams organising bike rides and walks with friends and family, and going swimming which has led to a positive effect on creating a healthy work-home-life balance; in addition the reports available show individual activity, calories burnt and who’s done the most steps at any given time, continuing to help keep the friendly rivalry going.
Simon Neale, General Manager at Rockline Industries said: “Oakland MD Dean Attwell recommended the GCC program to me and I have to admit that it’s the most successful wellbeing program that we have run in our business.
“The communication between our staff has been great with inter-team rivalry leading to a regular lunch time walking club, gangs of cyclists hitting the streets and more face to face meetings replacing email as a method of interacting. It perfectly complements other initiatives that we have in place such as the Government backed Cycle to Work Scheme and regular health campaigns. We have 49 participants and will look to increase that next year.”
Designed to boost staff morale, team interaction and to encourage a healthier lifestyle, all monies raised from the £50 enrolment fee will contribute towards the GCC system’s implementation in to local schools, with the daily virtual walking journey around the world requiring participants to record their pedometer steps on to the GCC website to track progress, with the further they walk the more amazing locations they will ‘virtually’ visit.
GCC is in its ninth year, and is the world’s leading corporate workplace health and wellness initiative, making it a remarkable global success with over 500,000 participants across 2,500 organisations in 83 countries benefitting, and each year, more and more organisations take part.