Fitbit’s fight against COVID-19 With Clodagh Logue

Clodagh Logue is Vice President of International HR at Fitbit. She leads Human Resources for Fitbit’s growing global business, which includes its EMEA headquarters in Dublin, where she’s based, and also their locations across Europe, Asia Pacific, and China. Clodagh is also responsible for the global people operations function at Fitbit. In today’s episode, we talk about the impact the pandemic has had on how Fitbit operates, and also how Fitbit is promoting activity, health and engagement in today’s remote work environment.

Life at Fitbit before and during the pandemic

With offices in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Clodagh had to tackle the challenges Fitbit’s workforce were facing long before COVID arrived in Ireland. The closing of the offices in Ireland on the 12th of March was an important date for everybody. Many of the team members miss the community, the workout classes, and all the elements of the office environment. 

But “it’s much more important for us now to think about how we help people to experience wellbeing wherever they’re at, as opposed to striving to recreate what we left behind.”

For example, Fitbit employees join step challenges with their colleagues around the world as a way of encouraging activity no matter where they are working from and also engaged with their teammates.

A renewed sense of the importance of physical activity

More and more people have internalised the connection between physical activity and mental health during these times. And technology can be an essential part of helping people build their health knowledge. What does this mean? Technology can help people be constantly aware of their level of physical activity, their sleep patterns, eating patterns, and hydration. These are factors that are essential to a person’s wellbeing, but a lot of us don’t take into account daily. Mental health is a critical factor to consider as the pandemic continues. This situation can no longer be considered “something that will last a few weeks”. It is a long term situation that all of us need to learn how to accept and thrive in.

Fitbit is taking a closer look at the wellbeing of their employees

Employee engagement surveys are a popular way for companies to keep track of their employees' wellbeing during this time. Fitbit went a bit further this year and upped the frequency of pulse check surveys, and asked more questions around wellbeing than ever before. What the surveys revealed is that their employee engagement has never been higher and a significant number of colleagues feel a renewed sense of purpose working for Fitbit at this time. However, an intense product launch year has placed heavy demands on their employees in this pandemic operating environment. They are working long hours and struggling to switch off at the end of the working day.

“So it was important for us to be a lot more explicit and much more curious about people’s ongoing wellbeing as the situation endured,” Clodagh tells us.

Fitbit is a lean company

Fitbit has grown a lot from a startup to a publicly offered company. However, it is still a lean organisation, without the vast benefit schemes or deep pockets of some of the multinationals. Clodagh feels strongly about the sense of purpose of their employees. This sense of purpose, to inspire people to live a healthier, more active life,  has been the most significant driver of motivation and engagement for people working at Fitbit during the pandemic. “It is the thing that draws people to Fitbit, and frequently has been the thing that has kept people at Fitbit through good times and bad. And it has, for sure, taken on a whole new meaning at the moment.”

She also gives us a compelling example regarding the strong sense of purpose of Fitbit employees. “We had a small but extremely driven group of engineers that we permitted to go into our labs in San Francisco in May, June. In less than a month, they pulled together a ventilator, which was approved under the FDA emergency regulation and brought into use. We took what we knew about hardware, devices, reading pulses and heart rates, and we turned that into a ventilator for emergency use in the United States in the space of a month.”

Looking towards the future: Fitbit COVID-19 Study

Since the start of this global health crisis, the Fitbit research team has been diligently working to help make a difference in the fight against COVID-19. This includes accelerating work on early disease detection, an effort led by their team of data scientists with deep expertise in machine learning and predictive modelling.

Fitbit Care is a new offering that Fitbit introduced in the US. The Fitbit Care engagement platform is a proven way to get employees moving and help them reach their overall health goals. It’s powered by smartwatches, trackers, and a mobile app for employees, and an easy-to-use dashboard and reporting tools for employers. Fitbit Care Ready for Work is intended as a means for companies and employees to use the Fitbit software and devices as a way to disclose their health when coming back into the workplace in a COVID environment. You can find out more detailed information about these two new platforms here and here. 

Based on the findings of the Fitbit COVID-19 Study, they managed to detect nearly 50 percent of COVID-19 cases one day before participants reported the onset of symptoms with 70 percent specificity. The study also reinforces that breathing rate, resting heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) are all useful metrics for indicating the onset of illness and are best tracked at night when the body is at rest. To read more about this study, go here. 

Want to get more information about Fitbit’s programmes and upcoming devices? Go to www.fitbit.com

Are you interested in learning more about workplace wellbeing and educating yourself in this area? Head on over to The Work Well Institute, where I’m launching my online education programmes. You can learn all about my 8 Step Framework for Developing a Workplace Wellness Program that Lasts.

If you have any suggestions for future topics you’d like to hear on the show, email me directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com