It is a well-known fact that healthier and happier people perform better at work. Increasingly, health and well-being are becoming central to every forward-thinking company’s strategic plan. However, ensuring that employees are healthy in mind and body can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
Better Humans is a start-up, based in Edinburgh, which offers a unique active well-being and health programme with personalised body and brain resilience training using actual specialist physiotherapists. Better Humans looks at body, brain and even mood health, and then compiles data results which offer tangible long-term benefits to employers.
Described as brain and body training for busy people, it is based on the REACH programme, which is a unique blend of tests and digital training using the latest developments in neuroscience, motor imagery, visualisation and brain training. If followed the programme will lead to healthier, happier and more productive employees; lower absenteeism; improve engagement and retention rates; and ultimately enhance the performance of the company overall.
Better Humans has been launched by Emma Collingwood, managing director, and Victoria Anderson, clinical and digital director.
“We are the only company to offer the combination of brain and body training using specialists”, explains Victoria.
“We place human health in front of digital health, if someone is fit and healthy in mind and body at work, it is proven that they perform better. Employees undertake six sessions per week and can speak to a qualified physiotherapist whenever they need to. However, this is not an occupational health tool, it is all about employee benefits which then in turn help the company. If you follow our programme there will be rewards as performance will improve.
“Better Humans can help everybody, and has been specifically designed for all fitness levels. We have made it very accessible and affordable as we want all employees to benefit from it, not just senior staff, managers or directors. Our ethos is all about releasing your potential before you get injured. We agree that digital health can be important, but at Better Humans we are actually interested in human health.
“If you’re sitting awkwardly, with a stiff back and bad posture day after day, your brain starts to think this is correct. This can then have a negative impact on performance, and can actually cause injury. It needs realigned. An analogy we often use is working with aches and pains, combined with too much stress, is like having too many apps open on your phone, your battery wears down much faster.”
Victoria adds: “This is not something a company does simply to tick a box, they will actually get tangible benefits from it in the short-term and long-term. Continuously throughout the programme there is analysis going on in the background, which provides insights into employee behaviour hot spots and what is working well and what is not. This analysis is then delivered in the form of a report to the decision-makers. All data collected and used is anonymous.”
Emma Collingwood has a wealth of experience bringing new products and services to market, and was the previous Head of Innovation Development, spanning retail and corporate businesses, and working with JV partners including O2 and Tesco. She more recently, ran a specialist innovation practice working across sectors, including clean-tech opportunities for E.On, digital consumer strategy for O2, new mass market fundraising campaigns for Cancer Research UK and low-cost workplace SME pensions for Aegon.
Victoria Anderson is responsible for the physiotherapy operation and new product development. She is a MSK advanced physiotherapist, and previously held the CEO position in an established city centre physiotherapy clinic. Victoria has prior experience in the digital health sector, and is passionate about adopting technology to make skilled physiotherapy practice more widely available. She is also a member of Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC), Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), and the Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (AACP).
For more information about Better Humans and the Reach programme please visit www.betterhumans.co.uk.
