George Corbett, First Bus

At First we pride ourselves on our employees. We wanted to provide a staff gymnasium where staff could relax after a shift and stretch their body. Due to their occupation Bus Drivers can suffer from stiff legs and backs from time to time so we wanted to give our employees the chance to relax their posture and for it to be value for money for each of them.

We had our own ideas on what we wanted to see in the gym and after speaking to Corporate Wellbeing we realised that they could provide us with what we needed and they also suggested new ideas that gave us different directions to think about.

Corporate Wellbeing listened to our ideas and then designed the gym with space considerations in mind (as our space was limited). Corporate Wellbeing installed brand-new refurbished equipment. This equipment was fantastic quality and great value for money; we found our equipment was at least 50% cheaper than buying brand-new.

Corporate Wellbeing initiated an annual marketing plan to promote the gym. This consisted of posters, emails to our office staff and also Corporate Wellbeing staff walked around our site and spoke to our employees to promote the gym message.

We found after 6 months of the gym opening Corporate Wellbeing recruited 27% of our on-site employees to the gym. This exceeded our expectations of the gym as we thought only the “hardcore gym users” would use the gym.

After the immense success of our first on-site gym we have employed Corporate Wellbeing to design and manage our second on-site gym at our newest site at Scotstoun in Glasgow.

Due to jobs in the UK becoming more stressful and longer hours becoming commonplace research shows that exercise is one of the best ways to combat stress. We believe that here at First with Corporate Wellbeing's help we are travelling in the right direction.