The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled people to be emphasize more on staying physically and mentally fit. Being fit helps a person to be optimistic, enthusiastic, and productive.
Several corporate companies have also started valuing their employees’ physical and mental health more after the pandemic, thus leading to the increasing demand for exceptional wellness services providers.
As many organizations are working from home, it becomes difficult for them to monitor employees’ overall health. To solve this problem, many companies have collaborated with different wellness service/program platforms.
While searching for such digital wellness platforms for our edition, 10 Best Wellness Service Providers in 2021, we came across One Stop Wellness, a comprehensive wellness platform that engages employees with simple social, mental, and physical well-being activities. It monitors employees’ health and suggests preferable solutions for improvement.
In the following interview, Romy Antoine, the CEO of One Stop Wellness briefs us about the company, its mission, and his journey in the organisation. He also shares how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the wellness services niche, his company, and how they managed to grow.
Following are the highlights of the interview:
Please brief our readers about One Stop Wellness, its mission, and the key aspects of its stronghold within the health and wellness space.
One Stop Wellness is a digital workplace wellness platform, designed to help companies reduce health costs and employees reduce chronic health risk. It also improves their overall physical and emotional well-being through health tracking and personalized video classes. We are helping to improve health literacy and provide people with the knowledge to create healthy habits and make long-lasting change to improve their lives in and out of the workplace.
Tell us more about your services and solutions which make your company stand out from the competition?
We truly personalize the user experience with actual data, specific to each employee and provide the coaching and follow-up to influence behaviour change. One of our key differentiators is our daily check-in with mood tracker. Employees answer a series of yes or no questions around their lifestyle goals and their mood.
Our algorithm uses machine learning to understand the user’s behaviours from these check-ins, their mood, and then combines this information with data taken from their blood work through a biometric screening to provide a health score, with a full report showing a real-time snapshot of that person’s health.
We are using AI and big data to understand, how your mental health affects your physical health and then provide the employee with a personalized wellness plan containing virtual classes, specific to them and their goals or health risks. Our process and methodology are a contributor to us, having over 70% user engagement in our program, while the industry average is only 28%.
How does the platform work?
Employees can log in to complete health risk assessments, containing questions about their lifestyle and physical health. One of our key differentiators is daily check-in with mood tracker.
Employees answer a series of questions around their lifestyle goals and their mood. Our algorithm uses machine learning to understand the user’s behaviours from these check-ins, their mood, and then combines this information, with data taken from their blood work through a biometric screening and provide a health score, with a full report showing a real-time snapshot of that person’s health.
Romy, please brief us about your journey in the health and wellness industry.
I have been a fitness enthusiast since childhood and really got passionate about weight training and healthy eating in high school. I became a personal trainer during college, when I was earning a bachelor’s degree in Biology, with a minor in Exercise Science and Wellness Management.
My original plan was to go to medical school and become an orthopaedic surgeon. However, my passion for fitness turned into my first business, RippedNFit, which became a wellness blog and also, a platform for me to work with clients around the world online and create personalized nutrition and fitness plans.
I worked with clients from all walks of life that is, stay-at-home moms to doctors and even the Mrs. World 2018 pageant winner. While doing this, I came across a client, who was struggling with her weight and work life balance after starting a new consulting job.
As she began to see her health transform, she told me that she knew her co-workers probably were dealing with many of the same issues as her. She asked her boss if I could do a presentation during their next staff meeting. This presentation opened my eyes to the world of workplace wellness.
What is your opinion on the impact of the current pandemic on the global healthcare sector, and what challenges did you face during the initial phase of the pandemic?
The pandemic shed light on many workplace issues, including chronic disease and mental health. At start of the pandemic, there was a lot of anxiety and fear due to misinformation, which led to stress and depression. This sparked an idea for us to develop a daily mood tracker.
We also learned that people with chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, for example, were at greater risk for COVID-19 complications. We had to work fast to create a COVID-19 solution that can help to improve communications, allow employees to self-assess COVID-19 symptoms, and get connected to the right medical professionals.
With continuous development in technologies such as AI and big data, what is your prediction about the future of the healthcare sector pertaining to the health and wellness vertical?
With machine learning and big data, plus the changes to the healthcare space due to the pandemic, I think there will see a greater adoption of new technologies and services such as telehealth and predictive data analytics. I think this has primed the industry, to move much faster and replace archaic systems with AI.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the health and wellness industry?
I would tell anyone to first know, why they want to enter this industry and to make sure they are truly passionate about it. Then find your niche, within wellness and craft the story on how you can make a difference and where you can offer value in new innovative ways. This is a very saturated industry, so instead of trying to do everything, get laser focused on an area, where you can have the most impact. But also remember to have fun along the way!
How do you envision on scaling your company’s operations and offerings in 2021?
Traditionally many corporate wellness companies offered on-site workshops and classes. However, 2020 put that on pause. During our sales process, we identified that many companies wanted to offer this benefit to their employees virtually.
So, we decided to produce our own wellness content, covering three categories – fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness. This gave us a large opportunity to scale our offerings because we were able to differentiate from our competition and win business from some of our largest competitors. This became possible as, these classes were in high demand, and we had them.
All our classes are under 15 minutes, designed by credentialed experts, and fun to watch. We plan to continue to build our content library and license it, to some of our competitors in the future.
