At least 30 per cent of employees tend to join High Five’s in-house gyms


We see a huge possibility to grow organically in the UK by putting the weight of High Five behind the ECW offering, both in terms of knowledge and fi nance


week health promotion programmes too, where people receive personalised coaching and education. “And what you see is that you get a


far higher attendance rate, and also improved retention, compared to the commercial market. In the UK overall, about 13 per cent of the population is a member of a gym. In Holland it’s 16 per cent. But if you look at corporate sites, at least 30 per cent of employees are members of our in-house gyms, growing to 40–50 per cent at the better clubs – we even have one customer where 80 per cent of its employees are members of our club.”


BEHAVIOUR CHANGE He continues: “A big part of breaking down barriers is helping inactive people change their behaviour, and that’s very difficult. We take a step-by-step approach, otherwise people will just fall back into their old habits after a couple of months.


September 2014 © Cybertrek 2014 “What we try to do – through a


system we call It’s My Life – is make people more aware of their own behaviour, of what they do on a daily basis, because a lot of people are simply not aware. If you do this, and at the same time make them more aware of the choices they have, they learn to make very small, positive health choices every day. They also learn to congratulate themselves. Then you can teach them, in very small steps, to see possibilities in their lives, to be more active without making big changes – taking the stairs rather than the escalator, for example. It starts by effectively ‘tricking’ their brains – being a little bit more active each day, but without positioning it as a workout. “It works the same with the lifestyle


programmes too – nutrition, stress relief and relaxation, for example. It’s all a case of helping people take small steps, giving them the tools to have a positive infl uence on their own health.”


ENTERING THE UK High Five Health Promotion – which Kienstra acquired in 2000, merging it with the corporate wellbeing company he’d set up in 1990 and with it taking on the mantle of market leader – now manages around 45 sites in Holland. In addition to these in-house facilities, there’s also a Nationaal Gezondheidsplan – a network of clubs across the country with whom High Five has an agreement to buy memberships. High Five clients can then let their employees choose from any one of around 1,100 clubs across the country, with High Five purchasing the memberships on their behalf and invoicing the company in one combined bill. But High Five’s reach is no longer


limited to the Netherlands: it also operates one facility in Germany and aims to open its fi rst site in Belgium this year. It also entered the UK market in 19 June this year with the acquisition of ECW – European Corporate Wellbeing – from Neil Gillespie, who


Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 37


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