It may seem like a step backwards in the fight for equality, but targeting men only has become an effective new weapon in the fight to shape up the nation’s workforce, says The Tonic.
As more businesses offer wide ranging wellness initiatives to their staff, the lack of take up by men has become something of an issue.
In much the same way that men are loathe to stop and ask for directions when lost, this same principle seemed to apply to taking advice about improving health and wellbeing.
Even when offering more male skewed themes, recent wellbeing initiatives have tended to attract more women who attend in the hope of gathering information for their men folk at home.
In an attempt to overcome this hesitation by the men, organisations have adopted a new approach to compliment their range of wellbeing initiatives.
The Tonic, a health and wellbeing company based in London, designed a Men Only programme for one of the UK’s largest pharmaceutical companies aimed specifically at guys and the challenges they regularly face as part of their demanding work and home routines.
Tonic Director Jeff Archer commented:
“Teaching men about staying healthy doesn’t seem to have much impact. They like to think of themselves as corporate warriors battling through each day to be the best they can be, so the Men Only initiatives focus on performance, energy, planning and getting great results by being as fit and sharp as you can be each day.
“With emphasis on fitness training techniques, fuelling for performance and ways to balance the mental and the physical challenges of life, the men were more willing to get stuck into the advice quickly and start applying it to their lives straight away.”
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By getting the content of the Men Only programme just right and then communicating it with some carefully chosen manly language, the Pharmaceutical company was able to sign up 10% of their male workforce within a couple of hours of announcing the idea.
Looking at the feedback from the event, perhaps it’s time other organisations started to recognise that just because the men in the office don’t sign up for generic offerings, something more specific may be just the solution for getting the healthy message across.
