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Engagement Health Check
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active user rate
of Cycle to Work orders (saving employees £2,800 and the organisation £1,200 in NI contributions)
saved in employee discounts in one year
visits to the Wellbeing Centre
Homes for Students (HFS) is the UK and Ireland’s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation, managing over 55,000 beds in 55 different cities.
Having rapidly expanded from a small team of seven to more than 1,200 employees working in a variety of desk and field-based roles across 200 properties and two central offices, the HFS workforce was diverse and widespread. While this growth brought many opportunities, it also presented challenges. HFS recognised the need to introduce a renewed approach to employee health and wellbeing that would be inclusive, accessible and of value to all – helping to reduce stress and sickness and boost the morale, engagement and productivity of its team.
The company wanted to be better positioned to support the health and wellbeing of every team member – regardless of role, age or location. The aim was to build a campaign that would lay the foundation for long-term employee engagement by promoting a framework around the key pillars of physical, mental and financial wellbeing. It needed to be informative, inspiring and fun, ensuring employees could benefit from tips, tools and resources throughout the entire year.
HFS partnered with Reward Gateway | Edenred a few years prior to launch its communications system. As such, it had the perfect digital location to host an engaging, accessible campaign.
The system, named Connect, became the home of ‘Ready, Set, GLOW’ (RSG) – a 10-month, blog-led internal wellbeing campaign that followed a month-by-month content calendar, aligning with different seasonal wellbeing themes. Each month featured a themed blog post promoting the resources and content available as part of the Wellbeing Centre within Connect, a poll and prize draw, and a theme-based prize to encourage participation.
Supported by monthly wellbeing sessions, appreciation events and an employee survey, the team adopted a multi-channel approach to raise awareness of the campaign across the entire workforce. RSG was promoted through a company-wide monthly newsletter, manager briefings and rotating banners on the Connect homepage. Employees were encouraged to contribute their own tips and stories, creating a two-way wellbeing conversation.
"Through a multi-channel approach, we were able to make wellbeing visible, personable, enjoyable and practical for every colleague, in every location."
‘Ready, Set, GLOW’ was a huge success, with wide-reaching results that achieved a very tangible return on investment… turning a £4,500 spend into a £11,200 gain.
The campaign delivered meaningful support in the short term, while strengthening the wellbeing strategy in the long term. At an operational level, sickness absence reduced from 2.6% to around 1.3%. The new benefits launched in response to employee feedback shared in the wellbeing survey were incredibly well-received and encouraged greater adoption of pre-existing benefits – including employee discounts and Cycle to Work – resulting in combined employee savings of almost £9,000.
In the quarter following the launch of the wellbeing campaign, Home for Students’ employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) increased by 22 points.
For their incredible work and achievements, Homes for Students were celebrated at the Appreciation Awards 2025 as the winner of Best strategy for supporting employee health & wellbeing!
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