May 24, 2016
A couple of weeks ago, a few members of our team attended the annual Thrive Summit, put on by our client, Virgin Pulse. This three-day conference was jam-packed with inspiring wellness messages delivered through motivating keynotes, client testimonials and other informative sessions. Here are some of our takeaways and highlights.
- Chris Boyce, CEO of Virgin Pulse kicked off the conference with an overview of new and exciting things happening at the company. With the recent acquisition of ShapeUp and GCC, Virgin Pulse can now spread its unique brand of employee wellness to an even broader global audience.
- Keynote Cameron Herold spoke about how to turn an organization into a magnet for great employees. He expanded on this principle stating that magnets not only attract, but repel as well. A good company will both attract great talent that aligns with the company values, and repel candidates that would not be a cultural fit. Herold noted that the cost of retaining the wrong person for a position is 15 times that person’s annual salary.
- One of Virgin Pulse’s clients, Morton Salt, gave a testimonial on the positive change that Virgin Pulse’s program (named “Dash”) has brought to its company. Nine months in, the company has already seen nearly 180 interactions with the Dash platform per month per employee, and each member of the program achieves 9,000 steps per day on average.
- Another session that resonated with the Aria team was B.J. Fogg’s presentation on designing habits. He made the very fair point that forming new habits (like exercising daily) is a skill to be learned and cultivated, rather than an innate ability (which many people assume it is). You need to regularly practice and improve your ability to form new habits if you ever hope to master the skill.
- The biggest highlight for our team was keynote Arianna Huffington. She spoke of wellbeing as one of the key indicators of success and encouraged attendees to take personal wellness – and more specifically, sleep – seriously, and to prioritize it. To help the audience become comfortable with the idea of ending the workday before their to-do list is final, she stated “if there is a day when everything is done, you don’t have an interesting enough job.”
We at Aria tend to agree.
Want to know more about what we learned at this year’s Thrive Summit? Tweet us your questions at @AriaMarketing or check out our other blogs for more information on our clients and what they are up to.
