The business case
Fitter, sharper, more resilient teams.
A coached wellbeing programme that improves how your people feel and perform, with a return you can measure. You provide it. We build it around your workforce.
The hidden cost
You are paying for performance you are not getting.
In 2023 the average UK employee lost 49.7 days of productive time to ill health, roughly 20% of their wage bill. The part most leaders see is absenteeism, the days lost to sickness. It is real, but it is only about 10% of the loss.
Nearly 90% is presenteeism: people at their desks but running well below their potential. Tired, low on energy, half-fit. You are already paying those salaries in full. A coached fitness and nutrition programme is built to recover that hidden loss.
Source: Vitality, Britain's Healthiest Workplace (2014 to 2023).
The size of the prize
Your healthiest people lose less than half the time.
The gap between your healthiest and least healthy employees is roughly 49 productive days a year, each. That is exactly what a coached programme is built to close.
Source: Vitality, Britain's Healthiest Workplace (2014 to 2023).
Productive days lost per employee, 2023.
Why fitness and nutrition
Physical health is the lever.
Physically fitter, better-fuelled people have more energy through the working day, recover faster, take fewer sick days and have the stamina to perform when it matters. Fitness and nutrition are the most direct levers on the energy and focus your business runs on, and they are the ones most workplace perks never pull.
More energy, fewer dips
Steady energy across the afternoon instead of the post-lunch slump.
Fewer sick days
Fitter, healthier people are more resilient and recover faster.
Sharper focus
Better physical condition supports clearer thinking and stamina.
The data backs it. Physically inactive employees lose 28% more productive time, and those on a poor diet 14% more. In 2023, 37% of UK employees were not active enough and 56% did not eat healthily, so the room to recover is large. Source: Vitality, Britain's Healthiest Workplace (2014 to 2023).
The honest part
The market is waking up. But access is not change.
More employers are taking this seriously, and that is a good thing. Strong packages from the likes of Aviva and Vitality put health checks, GP access, apps and rewards in front of staff. It is a real step forward. But it does not solve the problem: these give your people access to health services, and access is not the same as change.
25%
On average, employees use just a quarter of the wellbeing benefits offered to them. A benefit that goes unused returns nothing. Source: Vitality, Britain's Healthiest Workplace (2014 to 2023).
Access, most packages
- • Health checks and screening
- • GP and app access
- • Gym discounts and activity rewards
- • Optional, and self-directed
Tells people where they are, and nudges them. Then leaves the doing to them.
Coached, Wayfinder
- ✓ Assessment, then a structured programme
- ✓ A real coach and genuine accountability
- ✓ Designed around your workforce
- ✓ Progress that is tested and measured
Built to actually deliver the change.
Already offer a benefit from the likes of Aviva or Vitality? Keep it. Wayfinder is the coaching layer that turns that access into real fitness and performance, the part that actually gets done.
The return
Recover what you already pay for.
Every bit of presenteeism you recover is value from salaries you are already paying. The evidence is clear that healthier employees lose far less productive time, so the gains compound as more of your workforce takes part.
We start most clients with a pilot, so you can see the effect on your own people before you scale it.
£138bn
Lost to the UK economy in 2023 through ill-health-related lost productivity.
Vitality, BHW (2014 to 2023)
49.7
Productive days lost per employee in 2023. Nearly 90% was presenteeism.
Vitality, BHW (2014 to 2023)
+4.4
Extra productive days per employee a coached, incentivised health programme can generate.
Vitality Group impact study, 2024
In the workplace
How we deliver it.
A clear, low-friction rollout for your team, run by us.
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01
Onboarding and access
We introduce the programme to your people and set everyone up with their dashboard. We recommend offering it to everyone, not just the already-fit few.
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02
Baseline assessment
We test where your workforce actually is, across a range of starting points, so the programme is built on real data rather than assumptions.
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03
The coached programme
A structured fitness and nutrition plan, coached and adjusted as people progress. Real accountability, not an app left to gather dust.
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04
Review and reporting
Regular review cycles and clear, anonymised reporting show how energy, fitness and capability are improving across the group.
References and a note on claims
Productivity and health figures on this page are drawn from Vitality's Britain's Healthiest Workplace study (2014 to 2023), one of the UK's largest surveys of employee wellbeing, covering around 600 organisations and 198,000 employees with the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe. Programme-impact figures are from Vitality Group's 2024 impact study.
This page provides general information, not medical or financial advice.
Start with a pilot.
Send us an enquiry and we will show you how Wayfinder would work for your organisation, and what it could recover.