Thames Water, the UK’s largest water provider, has a regulatory requirement to map field assets, track their state of repair and log any associated health and safety risks.

This process of data collection quickly became costly for the business and both laborious and repetitive for engineers. Our brief was twofold: to increase productivity by making the process-heavy system more efficient; while fundamentally reshaping the nature of the work.

### What we did 
The first task was to modernise the collection and inputting of data – designing and building an iPad-friendly, smart questionnaire that was quick to complete (30mins vs a previous 3 hours), minimised inaccuracies, updated backend systems immediately and scaled across all assets and site types. 

We then wrapped that ‘tool’ into a wider metagame – a Great Asset Hunt with badges, inter-team competitions, XP that spanned jobs and a tone that repositioned the ‘have to do’… to the ‘want to do’. 


![Thames Water (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_great_asset_hunt_desktop_7821e908b1.jpg)

### What we learnt 
The Great Asset Hunt shows how the PLAY approach can drive greater productivity, engagement and performance improvements – even in the driest of tasks (data input). Before the Great Asset Hunt, an average site audit would take 8 workdays to complete. With The Great Asset Hunt, the average became 2 days, a 4-fold productivity uplift. Compliance with the established processes improved, mistakes were minimised, all while making the nature of the job more engaging for engineers. 



Let the data hunt begin with Great Asset Hunt

Perform is PwC’s proprietary operational improvement methodology. It’s a highly successful, globally-deployed management system that drives new behaviours to increase effectiveness and efficiency in an organisation and improve customer outcomes. The firm wanted to digitise Perform and chose PLAY as its design and development partner, to power up the highly innovative internal team.

### What we did 
Players and PwC-ers have worked together as a single Perform Plus team since 2018. Swing by the PLAY offices and you’ll find the combined team working as one – brainstorming new roadmap features, solving wicked design problems, delivering high-velocity development sprints and pioneering how the big and the small collaborate to create exciting new digital assets.

The Perform Plus platform uses gamification, recognition, goals and real-time transparency to create highly connected, highly engaged teams. That means more star performers driving stronger business outcomes for PwC clients.

![Perform Plus (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_perform_plus_desktop_ea88c3f5a3.jpg)

### What we learnt 
For a company whose vision is to unlock human potential and meaning at work, Perform Plus is in the middle of our sweet spot. With some of the brightest minds at PwC, we’re exploring motivation and behaviour change mechanics that drive positive workplace outcomes at scale – for businesses and for their people. 

We use our space for product events and joint team co-working and have created a new working model where the old silos of ‘client’ and ‘supplier’ are gone. The output is speed, transparency and a world-beating product that delivers a 15-30% performance uplift for companies.

#### Perform Plus in the press

[Startegy+Business](https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Sustaining-productivity-in-a-virtual-world?gko=f2d1a)

[Global Innovation Challenge](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/new-ventures/global-innovation-challenge.html)

Digitising human performance with Perform Plus

In a constantly changing business environment, the capacity for an organisation to adapt, reskill and learn on the go is increasingly critical. 

Given this need, we teamed up with PwC to address the following problems: how can we deliver training to develop people’s long-term skills and change behaviours; and how do we deliver this training at scale, whilst maintaining consistency and quality?

### What we did 
Working with thought leaders at PwC, we took the greatest obstacle to long-term retention of skills and knowledge head-on: the forgetting curve. 

We designed scientifically-proven learning techniques into a technology solution, delivering a personalised learning experience, that builds long-term skills and changes behaviours.

Taking inspiration from the work of Piotr Wozniak on ‘the economics of learning’, we built an algorithm of ‘scheduled reinforcement’, that predicts the future state of an individual's memory, and then schedules learning reviews at optimal moments. This maximises understanding and retention of new training materials, overcomes the need for relearning and frees up time and space to apply new skills and knowledge.

![Learning-Lab (content) ](/uploads/work_content_page_learning_lab_desktop_a4b5c3ac01.jpg)

### What we learnt 
With Learning Lab, we were able to play to our strengths of positive ‘behaviour driving’ and ‘player first’ design. In close collaboration with the PwC team, we took advanced learning research and married it with our motivation and engagement mechanics, to create a product which offers a world-beating teaching experience and puts less reliance on physical trainers. 

For those using Learning Lab, it’s like having a personal tutor in their pocket; teaching what they need to know in a way that improves understanding and converts quick learnings into long-term memory.


Meet your pocket tutor with Learning Lab

Bupa, the UK's largest private health insurer, was one of the first organisations to understand employers’ increasing responsibility to support their employees’ wellbeing. 

At the vanguard of employee wellbeing programmes and amid the explosion in personal health devices, Bupa approached us to design, build and support a disruptive wellbeing platform for their corporate clients. 

### What we did 
In contrast to the orthodox methods of incentivising behaviour through material reward, we designed and built Bupa Boost to reimagine wellbeing through a more game-like approach – player-first, multi-platform and non-transactional (no free cinema tickets).

We used game loops, progression mechanics, recognition, user-curated goals and social challenges to address the four pillars of wellbeing: exercise, nutrition, mindfulness and relaxation. We integrated with 100s of different health trackers, celebrated millions of personal achievements and created an engaging, mobile-native way to build healthy habits and share progress.


![Bupa Boost (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_bupa_boost_desktop_3089628424.jpg)

### What we learnt 
Boost was a partnership of big and small, where together with Bupa, we seized an opportunity and brought a unique product to market ahead of its time (this was before the Apple Watch). It grew to support multiple wellbeing channels, from integrations with GP health assessments to mass corporate challenges – we even investigated our own wearables – proving successful in organisations like HSBC, Co-op, Virgin and Accenture. It proved that a game approach to health and wellbeing could inspire positive behaviours at scale and for the long-term – 66% of its users became demonstrably healthier over time. 

#### Boost in the press
[The Telegraph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/11360744/Bupa-takes-on-Apple-with-new-fitness-tracking-app.html)

[The HR Director](https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/health-and-wellbeing/bupa-launches-industry-first-app-to-boost-uk-workforce-productivity/)

[Employee Benefits](https://employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/january-online-2015/tesco-and-carillion-to-introduce-health-app/)

[Cover Magazine](https://www.covermagazine.co.uk/cover/news/2391592/bupa-launches-corporate-health-and-wellbeing-app)

[Corporate Adviser] (https://corporate-adviser.com/bupa-launches-hw-app/)

[Pocket Lint](https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/apple/132473-bupa-to-challenge-apple-health-for-your-wellbeing-stats)



Inspiring health and wellbeing with Boost

Network Rail is the owner and manager of the UK’s railways. At the heart of its digital innovation lies the Digital Factory – a team of evangelist employees who are solving challenges within the rail industry using Agile and rapid delivery techniques.

We partnered with the embryonic Digital Factory to build an employee wellness app and in doing so, to share the PLAY ways of working and cultural learnings.

### What we did
Our role was to deliver an output (an employee wellbeing app), but also, to share a mindset and approach. We created hybrid teams, camped together in a shared space at PLAY Towers, connected respective teams to share best practice and learn together through doing (games are good at this).

We delivered a great product, on time and under budget, that will improve the health of employees – but just as importantly, we gave confidence and new perspectives to an evolving team who are now defining what the future of transport looks like for millions of Brits.


![Network Rail (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_network_rail_desktop_d75654e003.jpg)

### What we learnt 
What the Digital Factory needed was a very different type of experience. For them, the key wasn’t just to come away with a product, but also with a culture-first approach to making product. It demonstrated the importance of the relationships we create, and the process of creating – and why working together should be as inspiring and fruitful as the products we jointly create.

 Keep wellness on track with NR Wellness

British Gas needed a method to grow revenues through engineer-generated sales leads. Having implemented traditional financial incentives and commission structures, it recognised that those incentives failed to drive growth over the longer term. British Gas needed an evergreen and non-transactional way of motivating engineers to generate more sales leads, without alienating them with hard, top-down targets. 

### What we did 
Research and extensive engineer interviews told us that a game approach could be a powerful motivator - engineers were proud of their work and skills and were eager to be recognised by injecting some light-hearted competition. 

Working with them, we designed and built Game of Flames – a fun and highly competitive mobile lead generation platform. The points were Flames – earnt through leads, challenges, badge unlocks – and teams progressed through weekly leagues. We integrated social, real-time data feedback, leaderboards and achievements to drive sky-high adoption and a 37% increase in sales. 

![British Gas (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_british_gas_desktop_1227a0c30a.jpg)

### What we learnt 
Game of Flames was one of our most game-like projects – their engineers were the players (and co-creators) and their work tasks became motivated game actions. The success of the project was down, in very large part, to the engineers themselves – feeding back during sprint demos, suggesting design options, evangelising the final product to their colleagues.

Firing up lead gen with Game of Flames

Unilever is a partner that needs no introduction. Following the success of Dove’s mission-led marketing, Unilever knows that brands flourish when they connect with customers beyond their products, so they asked us to help drive similar engagement across their hair brands; Clear, Sunsilk and TRESemmé.  

The challenge was to create a global bespoke digital platform which could deliver game-changing, localised content that helps people from all over the world overcome daily challenges such as anxiety, ambition and confidence. 

### What we did 
We collaborated with each brand, subject experts, and even a few celebrities, applying our game design know-how to surface inspiring content and drive the positive behaviours that achieve the brand’s purpose. Once designed, we built the platform to handle many languages for users across four continents, and to be leveraged by a bunch of Unilever teams.  


![Tresemme (content)](/uploads/work_content_page_tresemme_desktop_bed0a299e4.jpg)

### What we learnt 
We love working with bold partners that want to be playful in how they unlock the potential of their customers, especially when their goal is to help people in so many places. As avid learners, we absorbed tonnes from the background expertise behind each brand’s purpose, showing us that great design combined with excellent content leads to great product. 





Home

About

Work

Services

Team

Insights

Blog

Careers

Get in touch

Our work