– Hyundai Corporation’s Walkonnect Walking Challenge
– The Chairman Chung Mong-hyuck Stresses the Importance of Group Members’ Healthy Lifestyles, saying “Employees are the Single Most Important Asset for Our Company.”
– HC Newly Introduced “Walkonnect”, its Own Mobile App for Walking This Year
[Who am I? Where am I?]
The story about you and your colleagues that can be shared, regardless of where to work. This article deals with everything that employees experience every day. Thank you for your hard work today
Hyundai Corporation employees walking Uiryeong-gil in Bukhansan Mountain last October. [Hyundai Corporation]
The distance from Mapo Station, Seoul to Gwanghwamun is about 5.5km. It takes more than one hour for an adult to walk the entire route. An employee in his thirties walks the distance to work every day, although he is not asked to do so. Why is he doing this?
“I liked eating and drinking but did not do exercise. For about 10 years, I maintained this unhealthy lifestyle, gaining 30kg. Thinking that I should change my lifestyle for my health, I happened to hear about the walking challenge event. It is also true that I love to win rewards.”
This is why Professional Lim Chang-bin of HC Corporate Culture & Communications Team decided to participate in the walking challenge. For the 2023 Hyundai Corporation Walkonnect Challenge, which ran for 47 days, he walked to work with the goal of walking 10,000 steps every day. He woke up one hour earlier every morning to walk to work and did his utmost to walk back home, if possible, even when he had already hit the target in the afternoon.
He experienced several crises. He said, “On Fridays when I had dinner plans, I had no choice but to wake up early in the morning and walk to work to meet the target. On the following day, I had to overcome a hangover while waking up in the morning and crossing the Mapo Bridge. On a hot summer day, I wanted to give up the challenge on my way to a meeting place after work. It was really difficult to endure the heat while going over Namsan Mountain.”
However, he felt happy to breathe in fresh air early in the morning, walk the streets without people, and visit a small café on his way home. He successfully attained the goal of walking 10,000 steps a day for 47 days. Thanks to the exercise, he did not feel any difficulty in walking for about one to two hours. He also lost 8kg and, of course, was able to get a reward.
He learned a lot of lessons through the 47-day walking challenge. He said, “If you walk slowly but consistently, you can reach the goal. Now, I believe that I can change myself through a healthy lifestyle.”
Among those participating in the 47-Day Walkonnect Challenge held by Hyundai Corporation to celebrate its 47th anniversary, as many as 136 employees successfully achieved the goal of walking 10,000 steps a day for 47 days. This means that more than 40% of a total of 337 employees taking part in the challenge met the target. For lunch, they intentionally visited restaurants far away from their office. Also, they often got off the bus or subway a few stops early and walked to their destinations
Hyundai Corporation employees walking Uiryeong-gil in Bukhansan Mountain last October. [Hyundai Corporation]
Most HC members agree that this challenge served as an opportunity to solidly position walking into HC’s corporate culture. In the process of recording their step counts via the application, HC members were able to create communities for checking their records and enjoy the challenge.
In particular, a variety of missions were assigned to the participants, including walking 10,000 steps a day for 47 days, competitions by team or by generation, rewarding the employee whose step count is in 47th place every Wednesday, and giving a reward to the member whose step count is in first place for a specific period including holidays. These events aimed to help employees take part in and enjoy the challenge.
According to an HC official, most employees asked each other about their step counts at every encounter during the challenge period.
A total of 337 participants in this challenge walked a daily average of 11,973 steps. Their total step count was 183,525,965, which is the equivalent of walking around the Earth 3.2 times. The employee posting the highest average daily step count walked an average of 55,873 steps. The highest daily step count recorded was 108,044.
HC awarded more than KRW 50 million in prizes to challenge participants to encourage healthy lifestyles.
Hyundai Corporation Chairman Chung Mong-hyuck (the seventh from the left) and HC employees taking a commemorative photo at the 2023 Walkonnect Challenge Awards Ceremony. [Hyundai Corporation]
HC’s special walking challenge resulted from Chairman Chung Mong-hyuck’s desire to improve HC employees’ health.
Chairman Chung Mong-hyuck has stressed the importance of healthy lifestyles, making him widely known as a health evangelist. Taking into account that trading firms are mainly based on human resources, he has emphasized the significance of employee health management.
Chairman Chung has repeatedly said, “Human resources are the single most significant asset for our company. Each and every one of you should do your utmost to maintain healthy lifestyles in a responsible manner. Your health is closely connected to the health of Hyundai Corporation as a whole, as well as the wellbeing of your families.”
Since 2011, Hyundai Corporation has offered CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) training to its employees, continuously operating programs to help its employees stop smoking and lose weight.
In particular, Chairman Chung has been widely known to have special interest in walking as daily exercise. He has often presented high-quality walking shoes or walking-related books to HC employees to encourage walking. In the same vein, the walking challenge has been held every year to commemorate HC’s founding anniversary.
Chairman Chung highlighted the importance of employee health management at the walking challenge held last year to celebrate HC’s 47th anniversary, saying “Your health always comes before business performance.”
Hyundai Corporation Chairman Chung Mong-hyuck delivering a speech last October at the Walking Challenge commemorating its 47th anniversary [Hyundai Corporation]
Hyundai Corporation plans to hold the walking challenge for employees this year, too. The walking challenge held last year focused on encouraging employees to have interest in walking while this year’s event will concentrate on helping employees internalize and implement walking as a healthy habit.
A mobile app for this challenge was also developed for this year’s event. An external application was used for last year’s walking challenge, so that many employees working at more than 40 global subsidiaries and branches were, regretfully, unable to take part in the event.
This year, Walkonnet, HC’s own mobile app for walking, will be used to enable global staff to participate in the challenge. Walkonnect, a platform for healthy workouts and walking, is designed to enable all HC employees, including resident employees and global staff, to be connected to the community enabling them to share walking activities and interact with one another.
An HC corporation official said, “This program aims to lead HC to assist employees in taking the first step toward health management. In the future, we will continuously develop and operate corporate-wide health promotion programs to keep employees interested in health management.”
March 23, 2024
Herald Business Daily