If you ask ten different people what is essential for good health, you will probably get ten different answers. Someone thinks it’s exercising four days a week, while someone else thinks a healthy diet is more important. And this is precisely what the app “Hälsokuppen” (the health project) wants to achieve so that everyone can take a step towards better health regardless of conditions and goals. 

“Hälsokuppen” is based on all participants performing healthy daily tasks and receiving points for completing them. Everything from exercising, meditating to eating more vegetables and these goals are chosen in the app. They then report their achieved goals and receive points and rewards along the way. The very idea for “Hälsokuppen” arose in 2019 when Robin Lundin, who works as a designer at Softhouse, was tired of all the classic apps focusing on health competitions based on the fact that the one who exercised the most was the winner in the end and with the typical outcome – that you go in too hard in the first weeks and then quickly lose both the desire and motivation.  

Before the actual “Hälsokuppen” was launched, I tested the concept at our Softhouse office in Växjö, where all colleagues had to fill in the data in an Excel document. But we all know what a mess it becomes when many people are in the same document and editing, even more so when it happens simultaneously. I realized pretty quickly that if the concept was to work, some kind of useful application was needed, and that’s how it went,” says Robin Lundin.

Although you compete against each other in “Hälsokuppen”, one of the fundamental pillars is to promote culture and help each other become healthier together. This is done by having a common channel where participants share their progress to inspire and boost each other. 

One Health Coup for Softhouse

At Softhouse, we care about our employees’ wellbeing and development, both at and outside work. We, therefore, prioritize wellbeing and health promotion activities, ranging from walk-n-talks, running groups, and running competitions such as Blodomloppet to listening to inspiring lectures. Some initiatives are run locally, while others include several of our offices. This year we decided to test run “Hälsokuppen” across Softhouse to see if we can encourage each other to be healthier, both at and outside work. 

It’s a fantastic initiative that has engaged many Softhousers to together invest in better wellbeing habits.  On our Hälsokuppen slack channel, colleagues post photos and videos daily to share their progress and encourage each other, says Vernisa Rejhan, Talent and Performance Manager at Softhouse.

She continues:

But for me, this is so much more. Joint efforts to encourage each other to better habits is yet another sign of teaming up that our colleagues value. A nice complementary way to strengthen the team spirit that we value highly at Softhouse. 

Softhouse launched the Health Challenge Hälsokuppen on 1 March 2023 and will end on 1 April 2023.