Encouraging employees to do the NLP

[chrisw12]

Hi guys,

Thanks for everything you guys do. I run a small (but growing) tech company in London, and we're currently deciding which 'perks' to offer employees. It's difficult to get the best tech talent at the moment so we're trying to differentiate ourselves.

The usual 'health and fitness' perks that are offered to employees here are tokenistic and don't seem to benefit employees. They basically encourage you to do yoga, drink kale smoothies and do a bunch of air squats.

Having experienced the NLP first hand and having seen the many health benefits, I want to offer this experience to employees. It's different from what any other tech company offers here and, if performed correctly, is truly life-changing which would hopefully encourage new employees to join via word-of-mouth. In practice, I imagine what we would do is allow our employees to book sessions with an SSC, and we pay the SSC on their behalf. We'd also kit our office out with a bunch of squat racks, barbells and plates. This would clearly be expensive for us, but if it genuinely improved the quality of our employee's lives, it would be money well spent.

I was wondering whether you'd ever had any companies try to use the Starting Strength method to train their employees? I'm guessing the main issue would be convincing people to actually do it? The media has misled everyone on strength and conditioning for so long that it would probably be difficult to convince someone with no experience to train, hence why SS chooses to 'narrowcast'. Is this correct?

Thanks again.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It's an interesting idea, but the narrowcasting aspect of it made become a problem for staffing, if it's not handled correctly. We'll ask people who know for comment.

[Nick Delgadillo]

Hi guys,

Thanks for everything you guys do. I run a small (but growing) tech company in London, and we're currently deciding which 'perks' to offer employees. It's difficult to get the best tech talent at the moment so we're trying to differentiate ourselves.

The usual 'health and fitness' perks that are offered to employees here are tokenistic and don't seem to benefit employees. They basically encourage you to do yoga, drink kale smoothies and do a bunch of air squats.

Having experienced the NLP first hand and having seen the many health benefits, I want to offer this experience to employees. It's different from what any other tech company offers here and, if performed correctly, is truly life-changing which would hopefully encourage new employees to join via word-of-mouth. In practice, I imagine what we would do is allow our employees to book sessions with an SSC, and we pay the SSC on their behalf. We'd also kit our office out with a bunch of squat racks, barbells and plates. This would clearly be expensive for us, but if it genuinely improved the quality of our employee's lives, it would be money well spent.

I was wondering whether you'd ever had any companies try to use the Starting Strength method to train their employees? I'm guessing the main issue would be convincing people to actually do it? The media has misled everyone on strength and conditioning for so long that it would probably be difficult to convince someone with no experience to train, hence why SS chooses to 'narrowcast'. Is this correct?

Thanks again.

This is a great idea, just be prepared for absolutely no one to take you up on it. I would really hope that I'm wrong. I was the general manager of a logistics branch and had 25 employees and a gym that I stocked with equipment inside our distribution center. I offered to coach anyone employed with the company for free. I taught a few people the lifts and maybe 2-3 took advantage of the equipment long term for the 3 years I was there. In my situation, I could justify using up space to do my own training and set up equipment since I was opening it up to employees, so it was no cost to me. Just the time I spent working with everyone which I'm always happy to do, especially when it's going to mean dudes in a warehouse aren't hurting their backs and find standing on their feet all day to be no problem.

So yeah, you're right. Convincing people to do it would be the main issue. But that's not unique to Starting Strength. If you can get a few people excited about it, it could turn into a pretty cool thing. I wouldn't hesitate to do it if I could afford to get things set up with a high potential for under-use.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Or you could set it up, offer it as a perk to the employees, and let the public join. Maybe Raghavan will help you.

[Ray Gillenwater]

Chris, this is a good idea and luckily tech workers are more likely to be interested in SS versus the general population, in my experience (especially engineers).

If you want to do this, I recommend sending everyone an email to see who's interested in learning more about it (I can draft this for you if you'd like). Then, we get the interested parties on a video call and I can explain the program to them and discuss what kind of results they can expect. From there, I suggest sending an email to those that attended to see who is interested in training under the guidance of an Online Coach.

I suggest offering a steep discount - but don't give it away, since free services often have no perceived value to the recipient. 80% off?

We'd be happy to work with you on this if anyone bites. But yep, there won't be any convincing involved - staff members will either want to do this or it won't work.

[Sib]

Hi guys,

Thanks for everything you guys do. I run a small (but growing) tech company in London, and we're currently deciding which 'perks' to offer employees. It's difficult to get the best tech talent at the moment so we're trying to differentiate ourselves.

The usual 'health and fitness' perks that are offered to employees here are tokenistic and don't seem to benefit employees. They basically encourage you to do yoga, drink kale smoothies and do a bunch of air squats.

Having experienced the NLP first hand and having seen the many health benefits, I want to offer this experience to employees. It's different from what any other tech company offers here and, if performed correctly, is truly life-changing which would hopefully encourage new employees to join via word-of-mouth. In practice, I imagine what we would do is allow our employees to book sessions with an SSC, and we pay the SSC on their behalf. We'd also kit our office out with a bunch of squat racks, barbells and plates. This would clearly be expensive for us, but if it genuinely improved the quality of our employee's lives, it would be money well spent.

I was wondering whether you'd ever had any companies try to use the Starting Strength method to train their employees? I'm guessing the main issue would be convincing people to actually do it? The media has misled everyone on strength and conditioning for so long that it would probably be difficult to convince someone with no experience to train, hence why SS chooses to 'narrowcast'. Is this correct?

Thanks again.

This is a very cool idea. I suspect you'd have more success with this as a talent attraction tool than with the current team unless they are all already into lifting. So I'd stick with it even if the current team don't jump on it immediately.

[chrisw12]

Chris, this is a good idea and luckily tech workers are more likely to be interested in SS versus the general population, in my experience (especially engineers).

If you want to do this, I recommend sending everyone an email to see who's interested in learning more about it (I can draft this for you if you'd like). Then, we get the interested parties on a video call and I can explain the program to them and discuss what kind of results they can expect. From there, I suggest sending an email to those that attended to see who is interested in training under the guidance of an Online Coach.

I suggest offering a steep discount - but don't give it away, since free services often have no perceived value to the recipient. 80% off?

We'd be happy to work with you on this if anyone bites. But yep, there won't be any convincing involved - staff members will either want to do this or it won't work.

Agreed; makes sense to take a temperature test. I'll draft something and should be able to gauge interest by early next week.

Good point about offering things for free. We'll have a think about how to frame it so it's perceived as valuable.

Convincing was the wrong word to use on my part. Instead, I meant explaining the benefits of being stronger, giving an outline of the program and showing them what's possible.

This is a great idea, just be prepared for absolutely no one to take you up on it. I would really hope that I'm wrong. I was the general manager of a logistics branch and had 25 employees and a gym that I stocked with equipment inside our distribution center. I offered to coach anyone employed with the company for free. I taught a few people the lifts and maybe 2-3 took advantage of the equipment long term for the 3 years I was there. In my situation, I could justify using up space to do my own training and set up equipment since I was opening it up to employees, so it was no cost to me. Just the time I spent working with everyone which I'm always happy to do, especially when it's going to mean dudes in a warehouse aren't hurting their backs and find standing on their feet all day to be no problem.

So yeah, you're right. Convincing people to do it would be the main issue. But that's not unique to Starting Strength. If you can get a few people excited about it, it could turn into a pretty cool thing. I wouldn't hesitate to do it if I could afford to get things set up with a high potential for under-use.

This is really interesting. Were you an SSC at this point? Am guessing you explained the benefits of training to all 25 people?

I'd hope that it would snowball if we could get a few people excited about it. There are early signs of this; my co-founder just started the program after seeing me put on 30lbs in 2.5 months. Even if we can only get 5 of our 20 staff to do it at first, people will notice that those five are getting bigger and, hopefully, start getting interested. But I agree that it's best to plan for under-use.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is a very cool idea. I suspect you'd have more success with this as a talent attraction tool than with the current team unless they are all already into lifting. So I'd stick with it even if the current team don't jump on it immediately.

That would be my approach. We know who and what our trainees are.

[Sib]

That would be my approach. We know who and what our trainees are.

Yes, if you pick something specific like this it’s a great filter. You also can’t win on the salary race for developers in London, you have to have a better narrative for your companies culture.

[Nick Delgadillo]

This is really interesting. Were you an SSC at this point? Am guessing you explained the benefits of training to all 25 people?

I'd hope that it would snowball if we could get a few people excited about it. There are early signs of this; my co-founder just started the program after seeing me put on 30lbs in 2.5 months. Even if we can only get 5 of our 20 staff to do it at first, people will notice that those five are getting bigger and, hopefully, start getting interested. But I agree that it's best to plan for under-use.

I was, and they all knew I was training people before and after work. But really no one gives a shit that someone is an SSC unless they know what an SSC is, right? My parents, for example, think it's neat that I "work at a gym."