Client Name

SOLACE

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Mohsin Zahid Khawaja

SBS Thought Leadership Areas

Behavioural Studies

SBS Thought Leadership Area Justification

Our project aligns with Behavioral Studies because it focuses on employee wellness, motivation, participation, and workplace behavior. Through our survey and interviews, we found that employees are open to wellness programs, but the main challenge is keeping them engaged over time. SideQuest+ uses a behavior-based reward cycle where employees participate in wellness activities, earn XP, redeem rewards, and feel motivated to participate again. This directly connects with employee habits, motivation, stress management, and long-term behavior change.

Aligned SDGs

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being

Aligned SDGs Justification

Our project aligns with Good Health and Well-being because SideQuest+ focuses on improving employee wellness through physical and mental health activities. Employees can earn XP by completing daily steps, attending therapy sessions at Solace, and participating in onsite wellness programs. This supports better mental health, movement, and overall well-being.

NDA

No

Abstract

Employee wellness is a major issue in today's organizations due to the rising pressures on the employees with workload, working long hours, financial obligations, changing expectations in the workplace and stress-related issues. Numerous companies are now aware that employee well-being is linked with productivity, retention, engagement, and workplace culture. But most corporate wellness programs are still restricted to short-term events like workshops, awareness sessions, motivational talks or occasional wellness events. While these initiatives can raise awareness, they don't necessarily encourage long-term employee involvement. This Experiential Learning Project was done in partnership with Solace. The overarching goal of the project was to create a well-being plan for the company that could continuously assist employees in maintaining their well-being, and that was viable for companies and financially viable for Solace. The project followed a research-based approach. Primary research was carried out using an employee wellness survey and semi-structured interviews with respondents from various industries. There were 65 responses to the survey. Results indicated that 82.1% of the respondents sometimes, often or always felt stressed about work. Survey results also indicated that 61.1% of the respondents reported no wellness programs in their organization and 57.1% of respondents indicated they would participate in a structured wellness program if it was provided by their organization. These results were backed up by the interviews. Responders indicated that the flexibility, recognition, support and practical wellbeing systems are more important to employees than one-off sessions. These results indicated that the lack of wellness programs is not the primary problem. Large-scale participation and continuity, however, are the greater problems. The final proposed solution is SideQuest+ by Solace based on the research findings and feedback from Solace. SideQuest+ is a mobile app that will help employees earn XP through validated wellness activities. Employees can accrue XP by participating in built-in step tracking, attending Solace-led wellness sessions as well as therapy provided by Solace, and other in- house wellness activities. XP can then be redeemed for vouchers and rewards from partner businesses. It adds value for employees, companies, Solace and brand partners by making wellness simple, rewarding, measurable and continuous.

Document Type

Restricted Access

Document Name for Citation

Experiential Learning Project

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