There are certain things that every job asks of us that we might sigh at like “I know you love to eat but let’s have a meeting at dinner time instead” and “even though you work at a busy desk I need you to attend the safe manual lifting course again”. But how would you feel if your employers gave you a diet and exercise program and told you they were going to monitor every aspect of your living life? Because that’s what happened at The Outside View in Shoreditch.

For 3 months employees were required to follow a diet plan and attend exercise sessions at the Centre for Health Human Performance, Harley Street. Up to this point the experiment seemed reasonable to me, until I read on about the number of smartphone apps they had to download to track sleep, physical movement, photos of food intake, how much time they sat down, and being prompted during the day to answer questions about mood and where and whom they are with… and seemingly every aspect of their living existence.

The idea of this experiment was to identify areas of the employee’s life which were sub-optimal to a point which might affect work performance, and to share strategies on how to improve these aspects and therefore work output, for example sleep quantity. But if you’re asking me, I don’t think I need an app to tell me that I’m tired, sitting down for too long, and eating too many crisps. These are things that most of us already know to be true.

The employees from The Outside View seemed happy to participate and share their journey on the company website. However if the public comments on the Guardian article linked below are anything to go by, then this isn’t an approach to working smarter that the general population are willing to adopt. Personally, if taking naps during works time is the solution to sleep loss then I’m on board.

Faye Prior (Researcher)

Sources

http://theoutsideview.co.uk/healthwealthhappiness/index.html

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/17/why-companies-are-tracking-the-fitness-of-their-employees#