A new Web service was launched Monday aimed at making corporate workplaces more healthful and productive and more fun.
The idea behind Limeade is to radically transform the health assessment programs that corporations operate in order to reduce health care costs, making those programs easier to use and more engaging. At the same time, it has incorporated new questions about workplace issues and employee happiness into its offering.
"It is not just about controlling health costs and finding the diseased and sick and singling them out, it is about creating a high-performance company," said founder and Chief Executive Henry Albrecht. "Our goal is more about maximizing the number of healthy and happy and productive employees."
Albrecht, 39, came up with the idea after working at Intuit, noting that if the financial services company could use software to improve people's finances there had to be a way to improve employees' health and well-being.
Employers can use Limeade's online surveys to measure a host of issues within a company. For example, an employer could discover that 25 percent of its work force smokes, which could lead it to institute a smoking cessation program. Or it could learn that a high percentage of employees are unhappy with the vacation scheduling, which could lead to a new policy.
Personally identifiable information is not shared with the companies about individuals. Instead, Limeade attempts to show a total picture of the work force, with HR directors or others able to access a dashboard showing different trends within the organization.
Still, Albrecht admits that it can be challenging to entice employees to participate in assessment programs.
"Some people actually think of that as belittling and antagonistic, like: 'Hey my company is trying to save money on their insurance, so they are trying to get me to give all of this information and I am kind of scared how they are going to use it,' " he says. "That is not our MO here at all at Limeade. Our MO is that it actually makes the company appear like a hero to their employees."
To date, Limeade has been testing the service with about 10,000 workers at 10 or so companies. It is just starting to charge for the service. Albrecht says it will cost less than $2 per employee per month. He declined to disclose customers, saying an announcement is coming in a few weeks.
The target market is companies with 1,000 to 20,000 employees, though Albrecht said it will go after any companies "who view the health and well-being of their people as their key profit drivers."
So far, Limeade has raised more than $1 million from angel investors and employees. It is seeking a first round of venture funding, though Albrecht declined to say how much he plans to raise.
Advisers include LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye; Michael Parkinson, the president of the American College of Preventive Medicine; venture capitalist Bill Bryant; and others.
Of course plenty of competition exists, including established players such as WebMD and Mayo Clinic Health Solutions.
But Albrecht thinks Limeade brings a new approach.
"We aspire to be like the Salesforce.com of wellness," he says.
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