J.B. Hunt, one of the largest transportation companies in the U.S., is creating a healthy workplace by getting their employees on bikes. The Fortune 500 company recently launched a bike program for employees working at its headquarters in Lowell, Arkansas. The program is designed to get employees out of their seats and onto bikes by offering programming to promote behavior change and incentives through the app Ride Spot.
Before the launch of the program, the PeopleForBikes Bike Business Innovation team, based in Northwest Arkansas, worked with stakeholders at J.B. Hunt to map out a framework for rolling out the program to all employees based out of its headquarters. The team started with a group of 30 passionate bike enthusiasts who were already participating in J.B. Hunt group rides and active members of the J.B. Hunt Bike Community Teams page. The Bike Business team tested programming for four months with the pilot group that included weekly group rides, Ride Spot Challenges, Bike Ambassador happy hours and educational webinars before launching the program in September 2021.
The big question the team needed to answer before launching the program was how to host an event that would get employees interested enough in a bike program to leave their desks and come learn more during work hours. The event had to be fun, interactive, engaging and offer employees something they couldn’t get anywhere else. With COVID on everyone’s mind, it also had to be safe with a limited number of non-employees on campus.
Through a collaboration between the J.B. Hunt Marketing and HR team, the PeopleForBikes Marketing and Communications team and the Bike Business Innovation team, an email flow was developed to introduce employees to the program and get them signed up for the private J.B. Hunt account on Ride Spot. The emails also included information about the onsite activation event where employees could join a lunchtime group ride led by J.B. Hunt Bike Ambassadors, get a free limited edition J.B. Hunt + Arrive Happy Ride Spot t-shirt, a free boxed lunch and find out more information about the new bike program. The team invited stakeholders from J.B. Hunt and PeopleForBikes to attend the event to drum up more excitement around the launch of the program.
The first communication about the event was sent to the Bike Ambassador group the team worked closely with over the previous four months. Their support was crucial to the launch because of their relationships with their fellow co-workers. The ambassadors are embedded in the culture of J.B. Hunt and the most loyal supporters of the bike program.
The program launch email flow started 10 days before the onsite activation. Other communications included flyers posted around the office, blogs posted on the J.B. Hunt employee intranet and posts in the J.B. Hunt Bike Community Teams group about the event.
Everyone’s expectations were exceeded when more than 100 employees came down from their offices to learn more about the bike program and participate in the activities. The lunchtime social bike ride had 15 attendees, including a member of J.B. Hunt leadership. All 50 boxed lunches and 90 t-shirts were given out. The conversations were meaningful and the team was able to engage with new and frequent riders and get them signed up for the J.B. Hunt Ride Spot account.
The team looks forward to building on the momentum of the success of the launch event by continuing programming to keep employees interested and riding bikes during fall and winter. The next step in the program is forming a steering committee of employees to help guide the program in 2022 to get more people signed up on the J.B. Hunt Ride Spot account and participating in Challenges to get rewarded for riding their bikes.
