Activision Blizzard might not be the first company that springs to mind when you think about healthcare, but it seems the gaming giant is all for its employees tracking their personal health. In fact, the company will pay its pregnant staff members $1 a day in gift cards if they track their pregnancies within a company-approved app.
Activision Blizzard doesn’t just want to know about its employees’ downstairs parts. It also offers similar incentives with your Fitbit, and logs “mental health, sleep, diet, autism and cancer care,” according to The Washington Post.
Speaking to the Post, Activision Blizzard Vice President of global benefits Milt Ezzard explained the pros of such an…odd idea.
“I want [employees] to have a healthy baby because it’s great for our business experience,” said Ezzard. “Rather than having a baby who’s in the neonatal ICU, where she’s not able to focus much on work.”
As well as keeping new mothers stress-free, it’s also a more cost-effective form of HR, apparently.
The Post writes: “Pregnant women who track themselves, the company says, will live healthier, feel more in control and be less likely to give birth prematurely or via a C-section, both of which cost more in medical bills—for the family and the employer.”
Ezzard also stressed that the voluntary programme has even helped women conceive, despite being told they were infertile, just by tracking their health.
Before you go thinking that Activision Blizzard is storing files and files of information about its employees’ nether regions, all the data is anonymous. Apparently.
An Ovia rep told Kotaku that employers don’t get to see the “personal, intimate information” its staff put into the app.
Ovia says employers see “percentage-based,” “aggregate, de-identified data to ensure that Ovia is helping women have healthier outcomes — i.e. are outcomes improving? Are employees using the benefit?”
Yeah…still weird to me. Anyone else a little creeped-out by this?
Featured Image Credit: Activision Blizzard