The Brainport high-tech sector relies on top talent to drive innovation. But what happens when the gradual toll of burnout, mental health and poor physical health affects that talent?
Enter Corporate Vitality, a company reshaping the approach to employee health. The company offers preventive health checks, comprehensive vitality programs and innovative testing capabilities for tech companies. At its core, the company believes that work and health are inextricably linked and its goal is to help employees feel good and enjoy life so their organizations can flourish and achieve their goals.
Laurens Van Oosterwijk, Commercial Manager at Corporate Vitality, explains the how to interpret data on a client dashboard.
Clients come to Corporate Vitality because they want to invest in their people. With better health, employees feel and perform better, creating a mutually beneficial situation for the companies and employees while saving the company sick leave and recruitment costs.
“After years of experience in hospital care, I became convinced of the importance of health prevention,” says Roel Voorwald, CEO of Corporate Vitality on why he founded the company.
This conviction has been the driving force behind the company’s evolution over the past 15 years. It started as a sports health-oriented company but quickly pivoted to focus on broader employee well-being. The company now has a team of almost 40 people, including doctors, specialists and psychologists.
Employee well-being is a crucial factor in corporate success, driving productivity, workplace satisfaction and retention and the company is seeing a shift in corporate mindset.
“Most companies nowadays finally accept the fact that they can do something to improve their employees’ health. That’s why our business grows each year,” says Voorwald.
The company’s approach begins with questionnaires and thorough health assessments of employees, measuring everything from basic health indicators to allergies, hearing and nutrition and even more holistic factors such as connectedness.
“We measure with questionnaires on lifestyle, workability and working conditions at each client. We can benchmark this with data from 120,000 employees and 700 companies,” says Laurens van Oosterwijk, Commercial Manager for Corporate Vitality.
The data feeds into a dashboard that helps management understand their workforce’s unique health challenges. It shows issues their workforce is dealing with, including allergies, hearing problems, mental health, relaxation, nutrition and alcohol. Together, Corporate Vitality and the client develop a tailored program to enhance employee health and productivity.
The partnerships start with one-year programs, but the hope is they develop into long-term partnerships to follow employees’ well-being.
With an impressive track record of approximately 50,000 health checks performed, Corporate Vitality has amassed a wealth of insights into workplace health trends. This extensive database not only informs their strategies for clients but also can help them predict what should be next in their strategy to address the health needs of the modern workforce.
At right, Roel Voorwald, founder and CEO of Corporate Vitality, shows a visitor equipment the team uses for health checks.
With projections of 70,000 new people moving to the area in the next five years, including 20,000 new ASML employees, the region continues to grow and attract global talent. But as these internationals join the Dutch workforce, learning to navigate the Dutch health system can be a daunting task.
“Internationals have a different mind about health and preventive health,” according to van Oosterwijk.
Corporate Vitality helps bridge the expectations of international employees and the realities of the Dutch healthcare system. In a system where Dutch people are accustomed to everything being covered by insurance, Corporate Vitality helps international employees who feel the frustration of long waiting times and struggle to get referrals for tests from their general practitioners.
By listening to the frustration of its clients, Corporate Vitality saw a need for more than basic health checks alone.
“There was a push for more blood tests. We saw that there were long waiting lists for allergy checks. That's why we also decided to do diagnostics,” Voorwald says.
Bas Op de Coul, an ENT surgeon at KNO Medisch Centrum, demonstrates the initial step of the Allergy Check procedure with the new equipment.
The company is using the latest technology to bring the tests and scans right to Campus. With a few small devices – where previously it was a room full of huge equipment – Corporate Vitality can do an impressive number of tests to check the health of employees.
Blood analysis and heart scans can all be done here and Corporate Vitality’s newest addition is allergy testing.
Allergens are substances that cause an allergic reaction. Symptoms include runny nose, congestion, sneezing and itchy, watery eyes when exposed to things such as pollens and animals. According to the NL Allergy & Immunology website, “immunotherapy (allergy shots) is a form of long-term treatment that decreases symptoms for people with allergies. Immunotherapy decreases the sensitivity to allergens and often leads to lasting relief of allergy symptoms even after treatment is stopped.”
Knowing that allergy and respiratory issues are very common among the workforce and seeing the long waiting lists for allergy checks in the Netherlands, Corporate Vitality invested in cutting-edge technology – called SPAT, or Skin Prick Automated Technology – to perform allergy testing that can be booked without months of waiting and with same-day results.
This approach helps ease the burden on employees and employers. Collaboration with general practitioners and KNO MC ensures a coordinated effort to address persistent somatic complaints. If medication proves ineffective, patients are referred to KNO MC for specialized care, in consultation with their general practitioner.
“People can get rid of their allergies by doing immunotherapies or desensitization. But before you do it, you have to know what the allergy it is,” says Bas Op de Coul, an ENT surgeon at KNO Medisch Centrum who collaborates with Corporate Vitality.
Showing a small machine, he explains the procedure for the allergy test. The machine makes twelve small scratches on the arm of a patient, introducing possible allergens into the skin. After a 15-minute wait, the patient again puts his or her arm underneath the machine where it makes 35 photographs at different angles. Using AI, the machine determines whether the allergy is positive or negative. Without specialized people or lab work, the patient can get immediate results.
Although allergies can lead to asthma, respiratory issues and sleep issues, only a small percentage of people visit their general practitioner or an ENT/respiratory doctor for treatment.
This technology will allow more and more people to diagnose their allergies and seek treatment. And the best news of all? This test is not just open to Corporate Vitality clients, but also to anyone willing to pay about 100 euros. It just takes a few clicks to book an appointment.
Corporate Vitality completed more than 14,000 health checks for ASML alone last year and this number is growing across all of its partnerships.
The company currently works with twelve partners, including major players such as ASML, where it operates a dedicated health center. With another dedicated health center on the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, it serves companies such as Shimano, TMC and NXP.
Executives are actively planning to expand its services to startups and scale-ups, recognizing the unique health challenges faced by employees in these fast-paced environments. The company also plans to further facilitate the process from test results to medical treatment.
Corporate Vitality is focused on helping promote health and well-being in the workplace to all Campus companies through research and innovation in this living lab.
“We share the same ambition [as Corporate Vitality] to make the work population, especially in this region, healthier,” says Marieke van Beurden, Manager of the Workplace Vitality Hub, located at HTC 85.
Workplace Vitality Hub is one of five innovation hubs at HTCE. It launched four years ago with partners Fontys, IMEC, TNO and TU/e to combat the sedentary behavior of office workers and associated health risks.
Along the way, HTCE staff suggested having one place where partners can do testing and validation of various solutions that support people in maintaining healthy behavior during their office day, as well as a physical space that brings together a network of people to make this a reality.
Workplace Vitality Hub works to build sustainable healthy behavior that lasts well beyond any program but creates lasting change in all Campus residents. What we have are two organizations at High Tech Campus working toward a common goal. It’s open innovation at its best.
“Implementing healthy solutions is one thing but having people actually do it is the biggest challenge,” says van Beurden.