Case study · LÜLA · South Africa

One company, one challenge.
Every step counted.

LÜLA was the first organisation to run Whole for Teams. From 7 September to 12 October 2026, 26 employees in 4 teams took part in Every Step Counts, a team challenge across body, mind and soul.

The short answer

Every person got their own daily plan, every team got a shared goal, and nobody was ranked against a colleague. Over five weeks the company earned 3,945 points from walks, breathwork, reflection, time outside and time with each other. LÜLA asked for the challenge to run a week longer than planned, and it did.

employees taking part: 26employees taking part
teams, each with a shared goal: 4teams, each with a shared goal
points earned together: 3,945points earned together
weeks, one longer than planned: 5weeks, one longer than planned

Download the case study (PDF)

The brief

A challenge for the whole company.

Most workplace challenges are won by the people who were already running before it started. Everyone else finds out on day three that they are not going to catch up, and quietly stops.

Every Step Counts was written the other way round. The goal was for a whole company to take part, including the people who would never enter a step count, so the rules were built so that a five-minute stretch at a desk counted, and so that being fit did not let anyone run away with it.

Each activity counts once a day. No day is worth more than 30 points. No rankings, no streaks, no penalties.

How it worked

Nine small things, three ways to be well.

Members could earn points from nine activities, none longer than thirty minutes. Each day their plan on Whole offered one from each column, rotating through the week, and the other six were always one tap away on the challenge page.

A plan per person. Every employee opened Whole to a day built around the challenge: a body, a mind and a soul activity, timed to fit a working day, with a LÜLA-branded welcome on the first visit.
A team per person. Everyone was placed in a team before day one. Members saw their own team’s progress, cheered each other on and, if everyone in a photo agreed, shared it with the team.
Practices made for them. We recorded guided mindful practices for LÜLA alone, so the whole company had something it did together.
A finish worth having. When the last day closed, members got a short film revealing the winning team, a wrap-up email and a feedback survey.

Body

10-minute walk5 pts
5-minute movement break5 pts
30-minute movement session10 pts

Mind

5-minute breathwork5 pts
5-minute reflection / journaling5 pts
15-minute mindfulness / focus session10 pts

Soul

10 minutes outside5 pts
10-minute connection moment5 pts
20-minute intentional recovery / reflection10 pts

The result

3,945 points, four teams.

Team 1 finished on 1,680, almost twice the next team. Because no one could earn more than 30 points in a day, no single person could carry a team. Points came from showing up, together, across the weeks.

As the planned end approached, LÜLA asked to keep going. The challenge was extended by a week, to 12 October 2026, without anyone having to re-enrol.

Final points by team, Every Step Counts

Team 11,680
Team 3890
Team 2865
Team 4510

3,945 points in total. Standings were hidden while the challenge ran and revealed once the last day closed.

Privacy

What LÜLA could and could not see.

LÜLA’s admins saw team totals and how many people were taking part. They never saw an individual’s points, check-ins or reflections, and neither did teammates. Any figure covering fewer than five people is withheld, on the dashboard and in this case study.

That is not a setting LÜLA chose. It is how Whole reports to every employer, enforced where the data is queried rather than hidden in the interface.

What we changed

A pilot is for learning.

We ran this as a pilot because we expected to find things, and we did. Each fix went live while the challenge was running, so LÜLA’s own people got it.

On day one, some members opened the community tab, could not see their team, and assumed the teams had not been set up. By that evening their team was the first thing on it.
On day two, people asked in the company group chat how to log an activity. The same day there was a plain-language guide at a short link anyone could open, signed in or not.
Members who already tracked their workouts found those did not count towards the challenge. From day three, they did.
In week three we added a way to send a teammate encouragement, and to share a team photo once everyone in it had agreed.

Run a challenge
with your team.

A pilot on Whole is thirty days, a cohort you choose and the measures you care about, with a report at the end that makes the case or does not.

Start a pilot Download the PDF

Case study · LÜLA · South Africa

One company, one challenge.
Every step counted.

LÜLA was the first organisation to run Whole for Teams. From 7 September to 12 October 2026, 26 employees in 4 teams took part in Every Step Counts, a team challenge across body, mind and soul.

The short answer

employees taking part: 26employees taking part
teams, each with a shared goal: 4teams, each with a shared goal
points earned together: 3,945points earned together
weeks, one longer than planned: 5weeks, one longer than planned

Download the case study (PDF)

The brief

A challenge for the whole company.

Most workplace challenges are won by the people who were already running before it started. Everyone else finds out on day three that they are not going to catch up, and quietly stops.

Each activity counts once a day. No day is worth more than 30 points. No rankings, no streaks, no penalties.

How it worked

Nine small things, three ways to be well.

A plan per person. Every employee opened Whole to a day built around the challenge: a body, a mind and a soul activity, timed to fit a working day, with a LÜLA-branded welcome on the first visit.
A team per person. Everyone was placed in a team before day one. Members saw their own team’s progress, cheered each other on and, if everyone in a photo agreed, shared it with the team.
Practices made for them. We recorded guided mindful practices for LÜLA alone, so the whole company had something it did together.
A finish worth having. When the last day closed, members got a short film revealing the winning team, a wrap-up email and a feedback survey.

Body

10-minute walk5 pts
5-minute movement break5 pts
30-minute movement session10 pts

Mind

5-minute breathwork5 pts
5-minute reflection / journaling5 pts
15-minute mindfulness / focus session10 pts

Soul

10 minutes outside5 pts
10-minute connection moment5 pts
20-minute intentional recovery / reflection10 pts

The result

3,945 points, four teams.

As the planned end approached, LÜLA asked to keep going. The challenge was extended by a week, to 12 October 2026, without anyone having to re-enrol.

Final points by team, Every Step Counts

Team 11,680
Team 3890
Team 2865
Team 4510

3,945 points in total. Standings were hidden while the challenge ran and revealed once the last day closed.

Privacy

What LÜLA could and could not see.

That is not a setting LÜLA chose. It is how Whole reports to every employer, enforced where the data is queried rather than hidden in the interface.

What we changed

A pilot is for learning.

We ran this as a pilot because we expected to find things, and we did. Each fix went live while the challenge was running, so LÜLA’s own people got it.

On day one, some members opened the community tab, could not see their team, and assumed the teams had not been set up. By that evening their team was the first thing on it.
On day two, people asked in the company group chat how to log an activity. The same day there was a plain-language guide at a short link anyone could open, signed in or not.
Members who already tracked their workouts found those did not count towards the challenge. From day three, they did.
In week three we added a way to send a teammate encouragement, and to share a team photo once everyone in it had agreed.

Run a challenge
with your team.

A pilot on Whole is thirty days, a cohort you choose and the measures you care about, with a report at the end that makes the case or does not.

Start a pilot Download the PDF

One company, one challenge.Every step counted.

A challenge for the whole company.

Nine small things, three ways to be well.

3,945 points, four teams.

What LÜLA could and could not see.

A pilot is for learning.

Run a challengewith your team.

One company, one challenge.Every step counted.

A challenge for the whole company.

Nine small things, three ways to be well.

3,945 points, four teams.

What LÜLA could and could not see.

A pilot is for learning.

Run a challengewith your team.

One company, one challenge.
Every step counted.

Run a challenge
with your team.

One company, one challenge.
Every step counted.

Run a challenge
with your team.