active movement pilot research debrief group discussions at jamie oliver limited march 23 rd /24 th...
TRANSCRIPT
Active Movement Pilot Research Debrief
Group Discussions at Jamie Oliver Limited
March 23rd/24th 2015
2nd April 2015/mike wade
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They should definitely keep it running – it would be a real shame to drop it now. But it needs quite a bit more work
Adopter female
In a nutshell
The Sample
• Four group discussions amongst those who recently completed phase one of the AM pilot scheme
• Group One were low/non-adopters of the programme
• Groups Two and Three were more enthusiastic adopters
• Group Four were the Team Leaders, who spoke for themselves and could input observations of the organisation as a whole
• Each group ran for around one hour
Before the detailed research findings, here’s the key business issue they have
uncovered
The Key issue
• This is not about the research findings – which, in themselves, indicate a level of interest in and way forward for AM at JOL
• It is about AM’s strategy for making optimum use of the JOL connection to market AM to a wider - and frankly more appropriate - base of companies than JOL itself represents
• Part of the decision will relate to how much further resource and funding AM feels able to invest in this JOL pilot
• Another part will depend on the relationship with JOL’s management and how they judge the prospects for a JOL/AM tie-up
JOL is unlike most organisations
• JOL has a very well developed corporate ethos and operational style; it encourages independently-minded employees; it is involved with and so very aware of health and wellness issues; its people tend to be young and fit; few staff have purely desk-bound roles.
• JOL is more a brand than a company, and everything they do must stay on-brand
• So on the one hand it is a tough place to test AM: fit, independent people like these can easily resent an ‘imposition’ into their busy, already physically active work schedule
• On the other hand their professional interest in the welfare of others makes them more open to the motives and aims of such a programme
• JOL know how to get people to change their habits – the right tone being vital– and so are a tough audience, setting the bar very high. JO has brand values of simple and positive, which AM hasn’t reflected well enough – in fact it sometimes jarred
So AM’s fit within JOL is a delicate matter
• Uptake of AM at JOL has been patchy, with no more than 40% of staff participating in some way by the end of phase one of the programme
• Some respondents would not have participated whatever the programme, feeling either that they were already fit enough or that their specific JOL job requirements made consistent involvement too difficult
• Other respondents would have participated from the start, or might now return to participation, if the programme were adapted to better suit the JOL brand’s way of doing things, particularly communications style and tone
• However, such adaptation might not particularly aid future AM uptake amongst what is probably its natural target of more sedentary, homogenous organisations – who are far less likely to object to the current AM approach
The dilemma this creates
• Adapting AM to better fit JOL will require a serious overhaul of content, style and tone, acieved through increased collaboration with staff before phase two commences
• Without such changes the pilot is likely to limp to a close• But such changes might prove of little practical use going forwards• So a decision needs to be taken:• Does AM want to prove it works for JOL themselves, in order to encourage
(more appropriate) companies to then take up the programme?• Or is JOL more useful to AM as a joint provider/distributor of services to
target companies, even though JOL itself may not continue with the pilot?
Choosing a course of action
• This depends on how well AM understands JOL’s management and their motivations
• If AM deem it possible that this whole test has been mounted in order for JOL to get to see the programme in action, with a view to jointly marketing it alongside JOL’s own corporate nutrition programmes, the best way forward may be to collaboratively shape the programme for optimum appeal to likely target companies
• If AM feel that this is not the case, or that JOL would not consider collaboration until AM had “worked” at JOL, then considerable further work must be done on the programme – with significant changes to content, tone and creative material required
The research findings
Initial expectations of AM from briefing
• Some responses to the briefing were consistent across all groups of respondents - from Rejecters to Adopters to Team Leaders. Most respondents had attended a briefing and felt the session too long, too grandiose in its claims and too serious/dull in tone. Where was the fun and positivity – JOL’s famous house style?
• A lot questioned the validity of some of the science, feeling it was too generally attributed or not at all (remember many of them research such facts for a living)
• There was a broad suspicion they were being lectured to – something the JOL brand is forbidden to do: JOL are taught only to inspire, never to hector
• Those who found the facts most interesting or believable correlated with those who chose to adopt the AM programme most fully (“I liked the briefing – it gave interesting facts that helped you understand; even if some of them seemed a bit weird to me”)
Some comments to illustrate this
• “We went to the presentation but it was too long and unfocussed”• “The claims are too big – like walk up the stairs and you won’t get cancer,
or talking about heart disease as if it would matter as much as better diet”• “The basis of the claims is hard to uncover – I don’t just want to be told
‘research says’, I want to know whose and when and where”• “The results are too far away – it’s all about a benefit in thirty years time –
how will anyone ever know?”• “The tone is too heavy handed”• “The emails were dreary”• “The posters look poor and institutional compared to what we do ourselves”• “The questionnaire is way too long and repetitive, we could see what they
were trying to do – we’re not stupid, so loads of us gave up on it”
One particularly clear comment
“ I totally agree with the principle and some, but not all, of the execution.
The original presentation was too long and stat-filled, though - yet it was still too rushed because there was so much in it.
It needed more focus and positivity: using the fear factor too much it come across as dictatorial. So it just didn’t engage us enough.
It felt defensive – almost as if they were anticipating trouble, rather than knocking us over with their enthusiasm.
The material seemed a bit off-brand for us at JOL, although the posters per se made you notice and told you interesting things.
We would do it better ourselves. We know how to excite and engage people”
Reaction to AM by Rejecters
• Rejecters is the term we have given to non-adopters or very low level (token) adopters of the AM programme
• These were the hardest to recruit for research purposes, fo obvious reasons. We did achieve one group comprising Rejecters and were also able to gauge their responses from Team Leader feedback in their group
• Despite rejecting AM positivity is mandatory at JOL, so those Rejecters who did attend were open and forthcoming about their own experiences and those of others who felt like them
• Interestingly, there was no evidence of apathy or disinterest in AM, as you might expect to find amongst non-participants. Rejecters had as clear a set of reasons for not becoming involved as Adopters did for their participation
Rejecters reason 1: I’m fit enough already
• There were many members of staff who, as well as eating well, frequently went to the gym, ran or cycled to work most days or regularly played sport. They rather resented what they saw as a suggestion that this was “not enough”. This may be considered over-reaction but was widely felt:
• “It’s designed to make the non-active more active, but that’s not us”
• “Our work is very active - split buildings, loads of meetings, always moving about - and most of us are doing non-work activities, too: like running, going to the gym, stuff like that”
• “The AM approach is couched in the negative too often; we don’t want to be told that going to the gym is not enough – it’s very good actually”
• “They say slow exercise is better than short bursts of energy, but others say the opposite – including my trainer”
• “I’m too young to worry that much about long life – I’m keen on being a better me right now”
Rejecters reason 2: I’m not keen on the tone
• JOL is full of professional communicators who are themselves sometimes accused of patronizing people, so their antennae are highly developed:
• “The presentation was a bit too smug, even though one could see the sense of the concept in principle”
• “The whole thing is too preachy and wrong for JOL – in content and tone of voice” • “It feels a bit cult-like and we are sometimes thought of that way, too – you can’t sell
a cult to a cult!”• “It’s patronizing and over directive – it feels like a programme for children”• “I hated the constant references to Daily Mail – not a source I want to believe” • “Its aims are modern but its execution is too old fashioned in style and execution”
Rejecters reason 3: Don’t tell me what to do
• Jamie encourages his staff to have strong opinions and always speak their mind:
• “JOL is not the sort of place to impose or remove personal choice – we never do that, even in our own campaigning on important issues, which we take very seriously”
• “Showing young children in the presentation was a mistake, underpinning the feeling that this was something designed for someone else and foisted on us for reasons that have never been explained”
• “Are we guinea pigs for something JO is thinking of buying or partnering with, to offer to companies not like us – big, sedentary organisations?”
• “There was a lot of pseudo-science in the selling of it, which tried too hard but didn’t convince me or quite a few others”
• “When one bloke said he was their marketing guy I thought, ‘Oh, I see’”
• “They said it was voluntary but when I asked, personnel said it was mandatory”
Rejecters reason 4: Unrealistic for our jobs
• While a few felt that the work rate at JOL meant the company was fundamentally unsuited to this sort of programme, all agreed that some departments - indeed any department at particular times - could not accommodate AM without compromising performance standards, (thus potentially attracting the unwelcome attention of management, despite their theoretical support for the programme):
• “They (AM) don’t understand how busy we are, especially when we get near copy deadlines on the magazine. If I could spare ten minutes a day I wouldn’t use it on AM, I’d go home in time to cook my kids’ supper”
• “The competitions were uneven – some could do better than me due to nature of my job, but I still got criticized by AM email for not doing well enough”
• “We have loads of freelancers who can’t join in because it would look like they weren’t giving 100% - nobody seemed to have thought about that”
Getting Rejecters back/to take it up
• This would be very hard with many, impossible with some
• However, Rejecters could be won over if the programme was re-shaped, ideally with them involvement in its design. This would allow it to better reflect the goals and benefits they see as being more appropriate, being more realistically built around the realities of work at JOL in general and individual departments/floors in particular
• The communications tone and density would also have to be fundamentally revised – perhaps JOL could be persuaded to participate in doing that for their AM programme
• The crucial thing will be to make the process more visibly collaborative going forward
• There is a more detailed analysis of which elements to revise on slide 31
Reaction to AM by Adopters
• Although the total take up was by no means perfect, many JOL employees positively adopted the AM programme - a proportion of these with great enthusiasm, becoming proselytizers at work and outside of work in the process
• Given that they were in a minority, albeit a considerable one, it sometimes took a degree of courage for these Adopters to continue to practice AM in the company of others who did not, or only did so occasionally and sometimes sarcastically.
• Management tended not to join in much – one said that time at his desk was such a luxury to him it was something to be cherished, not given up!
• The Adopters seems to be as strong minded in their positive belief as the Rejecters were in their cynicism
Adopters reason 1: Bought into the system
• Some people liked the comprehensive AM programme and the fact that they were reminded and gently cajoled to keep going:
• “I never minded the emails – didn’t always get to them as we get hundreds a week but I thought there were about the right number and I had no content problems”
• “Without the reminders there is a real chance you will lapse back. So an email might not get you to do what it suggests but can remind you to do something else – like get out and walk around the block to clear your head”
• “No bins was fine – a few cheated by bringing in carrier bags but most of us have forgotten how it was before. And it’s helped us a lot with improving our re-cycling. Same with the post – a bit of fuss at the start but fine now”
• “The stand up desks were popular – several people have built their own!”
• “Most mentors were great and really worked to keep it going and remind us, but they couldn’t be around all the time in such a busy place”
Adopters reason 2: Made it work my way
• Adopters were more likely to have accepted the overall benefits rather than slavishly bought into the entire programme. They had selected the components they felt would work best in their lives:
• “You sort of cherry pick the elements that you think will work for you – like walking the last bus stop - so even though you aren’t doing it all, it’s in your mind and conditioning the way you do things all the time. It’s a bit like the way in which specific recipes you read but may not follow can feed a broader understanding of nutrition basics”
• “The competitive aspect was really good and galvanizing, like the pedometer challenge: although you soon realise that some teams are cheating! It’s fun, though – I tried to do the fun bits most”
• “People do talk about it – in the office and outside, but not always as outlined in the programme – I’ve adopted stand-up eating at home, for example”
• “I’ve taken some of it home with me – on my commute (standing on the tube, even skipping my tube and walking from station), talking to friends and relatives about it. My step-mum has adopted it at her workplace and is spreading the word there”
Adopters reason 3: Jamie and the bosses
• Jamie has made it clear that he supports this initiative and the management have endorsed it, even if they haven’t adopted it much themselves, but there are sometimes lingering doubts:
• “JO has got behind it and usually that’s enough for us to believe, but this is clearly not his invention. It’s something he’s ‘bought in’ - probably as a test - and so one can’t get as excited as we do about some of the other initiatives. And is he paying for it – at a time when there are redundancies going around?”
• “It fits with the sort of thing JOL do – we sometimes forget that we are in a more progressive company than most, this programme helps one remember”
• “What is Jamie’s personal point of view? We know he has sanctioned it and mentioned it but is he mad keen or just checking it out – this matters in an organization like JOL”
How to keep Adopters on side
• “It needs a bit of re-invigorating and a lot more customizing”
• “The competitive element is good – floors need to set their own targets to ensure that they’re realistic and don’t end up dividing people”
• “We have created ourselves a bit of a relentless work culture here – it’s not JO or the management – in which leaving the office at all is frowned upon. Even if you are eating lunch at your desk people will bring work queries and want an immediate response. That has to change a bit”
• “You can feel a bit like the school swat for sticking to it. More direction from Jamie would help, maybe a video so we can see he’s right behind it”
The Team Leader experience
• All were keen and wanted the programme to work, but it’s not an easy job – though they relished the challenge. Some had concerns they could end up as piggy-in-the-middle: “Do you nag too much? Will staff see you as a management lackey while management might see you as a barrier to staff work rate?”
• They all enjoyed AM but soon learned they had to slightly temper their enthusiasm and take a middle course, more than they would ideally have liked: “you have to back off in the face of hostility and get real. Setting a good example can be more powerful”
• They often felt frustrated when their own job responsibilities got in the way of doing as much mentoring and encouraging as they wanted to
• Most staff showed interest: “with the keenest you realized you were preaching to the choir, others were much harder nuts to crack”. Paradoxically, the most desk-bound were the least naturally receptive, those already active were the most receptive (but not all of them as they were also the most questioning of AM’s value to them)
Living with the AM programme: plus points
• The less involved participants didn’t read most of the literature or even open most of the emails – “we get a million a day at JOL and these were too long and repetitive” - but they still had the effect of keeping up general saliency
• Despite finding the briefing session too long and fact-packed, a number of the most dramatic benefits were well recalled and acted as a reminder of the on-going benefits of sticking with the programme
• Most fell away a little over time but didn’t stop – “I thought the small things were best, like the lack of bins and postal service which we now want to stay as they are”
• There was one official standing desks in the building bur five had been home made: “Loads of people want a proper one, at least for hot desking – I’d actually have one permanently if I could. The stand up meeting room is great, too”
Living with the AM programme: minus points
• The posters came in for a lot of criticism. Some were too morbid (eg ‘Don’t meet your maker’) or felt to over claim. “They looked turgid, kept falling down, were plastered everywhere and were too ugly for our sort of place. After a while you blanked them out”
• The “strange” team names felt odd and unnecessary: “Why didn’t they use floors or departments, which we could recognise and relate to?”
• The programme was thought to have unintended glitches in it: “The guest sofa said ‘Don’t sit down’ – and the outside world didn’t know why they weren’t allowed to”
• Management were mostly supportive but didn’t participate much, which discouraged some: “you’re scared of looking like a slacker”
• Many didn’t like the loo policy – “you get noticed leaving your floor and going to another one to use their loo. I’m not comfortable in the other floor’s loo – it’s strange but true – also they can resent you turning up just to use theirs, especially if they sit near it”
Opinions of programme tailoring
• The tailoring of the programme to individual office layout and location is very important in encouraging compliance. However, with JOL it also needed to be about tailoring to their culture and house style, which they felt wasn’t done well enough: “it’s a lot more than adding our logo onto something already there”
• “It isn’t tailored, really. Once you start to do it you realise it’s really off the shelf and doesn’t reflect the differences in activities between departments and floors in JOL: like the fact that your swipe card doesn’t work for printers on other floors so you have to enter codes manually, which you don’t have time for”
• “It has to be more embedded into the JOL culture – eg walking meetings called by the bosses, jawbones to give us reminders, PR so visitors know that’s how we do things round here, not asking us about weird posters”
• “We have visitors here from all over the world. Standing meeting rooms are no good for visitors from Paris who’ve flown in for a two hour meeting”
The overall effect of AM experience
• While it is easy to correlate AM with physical activity and potential physical benefits (like longer life) no respondents reported any physical benefits from the work programme (although one or two saw fitness benefits might come from the extension of the AM principles into the rest of their lives)
• Several respondents had, however, noticed a marked mental benefit:• “I think I’ve got better concentration” • “I feel less sluggish – especially in the afternoon” • “Generally I’m in a better, more alert frame of mind”• “I now think of my well-being all the time, not just when I’m at the gym”
• Despite what might be thought of as a muted response to the scheme’s benefits, the majority thought it should be retained - indicating that they perceived it as the right thing to be doing, at least at a subconcious level
Views on continuing with AM
• Most respondents wanted the pilot to continue, albeit in revised form:
• “There’s a real hunger for this sort of thing but its not been well enough designed or implemented”
• “The message was on-brand but the delivery wasn’t. Simplify it – fewer movements, shorter communications, more positivity, grow the focus on energy and alertness”
• “The challenges really helped give focus through tangible activity points. People even volunteered their own Jawbone data - if only there was more tech kit to support the programme”
• “The best hook for AM in this place is Work Better”
• “To keep the initiative, get more collaborative: individual departmental pre-briefings would work out a programme properly tailored to their circumstances”
What’s worked well and what hasn’t for JOL
Keep in programme• Focus on improving work
performance/sharpness• No bins• No post• Standing desks and rooms• Going for walks• Active commuting aspects• Regular contact (but sharper)
Reconsider• Emphasis on long term health
benefits/longevity• Overall tone/look/feel
• Distant loos
• Distant photocopying
• Briefing vs. consultation
• Quant questionnaire
• Design of challenges
