Company Bikes as a Healthy Perk

Kaiser Bike Fleet

Challenge

How does a national health care provider offer company bikeshare when it’s not quite sure how to get rolling?

Solution

Call on experts who understand the bikeshare nuts and bolts—from convincing stakeholders to sourcing bikes to implementing a program.

Kaiser Permanente knows a thing or two about employee wellness. Afterall, the health insurance behemoth has more than 10 million members nationwide.

But when it came to offering its own employees bikes to ride during the day, KP wasn’t sure where to begin. The need for bikeshare became obvious when a new recreational pathway opened, creating opportunities for exercise and connecting KP’s Pleasanton campus to downtown. What wasn’t obvious was how to pull off a corporate bikeshare program for a couple thousand employees on this IT campus.

Enter Bikes Make Life Better. Our team worked on a full-fledged bikeshare program, helping KP convince management, select the right bikes and launch a well-loved perk that helps keep employees out of the doctor’s office.

Results

“I now have an alternative to walking to get my 30 minutes of activity in during the workday,” says an Application Coordinator Specialist working at on the Pleasanton campus. “It has also given me the opportunity to ride a bike again, which I hadn’t done since I was about twelve.” Post launch surveys revealed that 95 percent of KP’s employees are happy with the new bikeshare.

But, it’s not only about feeling good: According to the US Department of Health and Human Services reports regular physical activity can improve an employee’s work performance by up to 52 percent, and people who bike take 32 percent fewer sick days than their less bike-inclined peers.

For more on how adding bikes as a wellness perk saves on corporate health insurance costs, check out the Bikes Make Life Better blog.