Active Teams – Engaging our Workforce

How do you engage a workforce effectively? A difficult question, but one which is worth wrestling with, since an engaged workforce is typically 18% more productive and 23% move profitable. 

In 2026 we are doing something slightly different by signing up with Active Teams, to build on an increasingly health-focused culture within Bensons. 

Active Teams work with many organisations to build engaging activity challenges that energise teams and boost connections. Typically their challenges boost employee exercise levels by 268%.

 This in turn leads to a range of benefits, including:

• Healthy people take less time off sick, hence productivity increases
• Improved mental health, as a result of physical activity being one of the most cost-effective ways of support mental health.
• Increased staff retention through enhanced connection to colleagues and the business

So in effect it is a win:win, a healthier workforce and a healthier business.

So far in 2026 we have run two active teams challenges, in April, 14 of us took part in a 5 week challenge to see who could log the most 'active days' where over 20 minutes of continuous exercise counts as an active day. Our two teams of 'Bensons Burners' and 'Circuit Breakers' collectively logged xx minutes.

From 11th June to 19th July, Bensons along with 24 other organisations took part in the Active Teams challenge to log one million minutes of exercise to support men’s health. The challenge was a success with 1,012,705 minutes logged with the 15 participants from Bensons contributing over 22,000 active minutes. 

Alongside Active Teams, Bensons has established our own Strava Club where colleagues can log and share their activity. This provides the opportunity for us to learn more about our colleagues and how we choose to take exercise, provide talking points and overall increase engagement, just like it says on the Active Teams tin.

Members of the team also remain committed to maintaining a healthy weight, with an unofficial Thursday morning weigh-in now in its second year. Being engineers, this has grown in complexity with a designated spot in the production area marked out for the scales to be placed. This removes the opportunity to blame 'dodgy scales' for any week on week weight gain.

Overall, Bensons has gained significantly from our work with Active Teams, we all know more about each other than before. Our team members are visibly healthier and the business is increasingly engaged and continues to be an increasingly high-performing team.