Sauce and Tommy Coyle team up to develop app for a fighting fit workforce

INNOVATIVE: Jim Wardlaw, Chief of Product and Design at Sauce, left, and former Commonwealth lightweight boxing champion Tommy Coyle

Smart tech specialist Sauce has teamed up with former boxing champion Tommy Coyle to develop a unique app to improve health, wellbeing and workplace performance.

Sauce was tasked by Tommy to roll out the next phase of his project with renewable energy giant Siemens Gamesa to create a healthier, happier and more productive workforce.

The former Commonwealth lightweight champion is working with Siemens Gamesa to help transform the lifestyles of more than 750 staff at its wind turbine blade factory in Hull.

His Coyle Health and Wellbeing programme is built on the pillars of “move well”, “eat well”, “think well” and “sleep well”.

Through the programme, Tommy and his Coyle Health and Wellbeing team introduced pre-shift warm-ups to avoid injuries, regular health checks for staff, wellbeing planner boards around the site and healthier options in the canteen.

However, the introduction of Covid restrictions, including on visitors to the factory, meant Tommy and his team were unable to physically attend the site.

During lockdown, sessions continued to take place online, but the opportunity to provide a dedicated platform to continue and expand on the good work already carried out became clear. Even as some restrictions have lifted, the uncertainty created by Covid-19 has increased demand for a digital solution.

Now, award-winning Sauce has developed the Coyle Health and Wellbeing App.

Unlike other health apps on the market, which focus on specific elements such as fitness, diet, or sleep patterns, the Coyle Health and Wellbeing App brings all four pillars of his programme together on one platform.

‘MOVE WELL, EAT WELL, THINK WELL, SLEEP WELL’: A user following one of the workouts on the Coyle Health and Wellbeing App

Through the app, Siemens Gamesa staff can follow warm-up and workout plans, track their steps and other fitness goals, monitor their calorie intake, access positive mental health support and receive tips to improve their sleep.  

It includes a health assessment feature, so users can check on their overall wellbeing based on the information they’ve inputted, or pulled in from other health apps. Users then receive guidance about what they need to do to feel better and be healthier, such as improve nutrition, exercise or change sleep patterns.

The app also allows the staff to set and share targets and performance data to encourage healthy competition across the factory.

It is now being rolled out across the site to help improve the physical and mental health and wellbeing of staff in all departments, ultimately leading to a more efficient and effective operation.

Jim Wardlaw, Chief of Product and Design at Sauce, said: “There’s no doubt the world has become more digital because of the pandemic. Companies and industries have had to adapt to new ways of working to survive and grow and, along with the challenges, there are positives that have come from this.

“Through having to deliver his sessions with Siemens Gamesa remotely, Tommy realised there wasn’t an app that brought together all aspects of health and wellbeing in the same place. That’s what we’ve now created.

“The Coyle Health and Wellbeing App is effectively a one stop shop for everything related to physical and mental health and wellbeing. Users can access advice and guidance, follow specific training plans, carry out their own health analysis, and interact and engage with their colleagues.

“It’s designed primarily to improve the health and the wellbeing of the individual but, by using it in a corporate setting, it can help improve performance because a healthy workforce is a productive workforce.”

The app has been developed specifically for Siemens Gamesa’s Hull factory, but can also be scaled up and adapted for other operations across the country, and the world, in the future.

UNIQUE APP: Jim Wardlaw and Tommy Coyle

Tommy said: “The pandemic highlighted that we were unable to deliver our programme with Siemens Gamesa as effectively as we would like as we weren’t able to be on site.

“We saw that as a challenge but also an opportunity, and through their technical expertise, Sauce have allowed us to adapt and innovate and now we don’t have to be in the factory every day to get the same results.

“Siemens Gamesa want a winning team to make the best wind turbine blades in the safest and most efficient way possible. We’re helping them do that by improving the health, wellbeing and, ultimately, the productivity of their staff.

“The app now allows us to take that support to the next level and deliver even greater results.”

A spokesperson for Siemens Gamesa said: “Siemens Gamesa are proud partners of Coyle Health and Wellbeing and are excited to take part in the launch of the new app.

“Our continued relationship with Tommy Coyle is a prime example of our progress to being an industry leader of health and wellbeing at work.”

Sauce is based at Hull’s Centre for Digital Innovation (C4DI) tech hub and has established an outstanding reputation for enabling businesses and other organisations to achieve their objectives through technology solutions.

It adopts a flexible, “agile” method of working, acting as co-collaborators with its clients, which include Nestlé, RB, Rix and Ideal Heating, among others.