Jon joined the Million Minutes for Men’s Health Challenge with a walking stick, persistent pain and mobility difficulties.
He did not expect to contribute much.
Yet one walk became another. His minutes rose week by week. By the end of the challenge, he had kept pace with many other participants, surprised his colleagues and, most importantly, surprised himself.
Jon later received the Impact Award at our celebration event.
His story captures what Manbassador and Active Teams have learned after 18 months of running workplace challenges: men’s health at work does not always begin with a difficult conversation.
Sometimes it begins with movement, a shared target and the knowledge that your contribution matters.
Organisations can now register their interest in the next Manbassador Challenge, when we will climb Everest together during Men’s Health Month in November: https://activeteams.co.uk/manbassador
The engagement problem is not a lack of concern
Many workplace wellbeing leads recognise the pattern.
An organisation has an EAP, mental health resources and regular messages encouraging people to “just talk”, yet the male colleagues facing the greatest health risks are often the least visible in the engagement data.
Those services still matter, but passive availability is not the same as effective reach.
Research shows that men are less likely to attend health checks, use mental health services or participate in screening. These disparities are greatest among men facing socioeconomic hardship, rural isolation and other intersecting disadvantages. The 5R Framework for men’s health policy therefore recommends proactively reaching men in places they already spend time, including workplaces, sports settings and digital spaces.
The scale of the problem is stark.
In 2021, 39% of male deaths in the UK occurred before the age of 75. The rate of premature male death in the most deprived fifth of constituencies was 81% higher than in the least deprived fifth. Men living in England’s least deprived areas lived around ten years longer than those in the most deprived areas.
The same report found that 62% of men invited to an NHS Health Check did not complete it, while Movember polling found that 64% of men waited more than seven days after noticing symptoms before visiting a doctor.
Premature male ill health is an industry issue
This matters acutely in majority-male industries such as construction, engineering, manufacturing, transport and logistics, where occupational hazards, workforce demographics and socioeconomic risks can intersect.
Construction is approximately 85% male, compared with 52% across the wider UK workforce. The sector is also forecast to need an average of 41,200 additional workers every year between 2026 and 2030. Logistics UK continues to report significant workforce, training and skills pressures across its sector. (GOV.UK)
Losing experienced men prematurely – or seeing avoidable ill health remove them from work – weakens capacity, productivity, knowledge transfer and workforce resilience.
Movember’s economic modelling estimated that the UK could have saved up to £9.4 billion in 2023 if preventable cases arising from five major health conditions in men had been avoided.
Men’s health at work is not a niche awareness topic.
It is a workforce and human sustainability issue.
From a passive offer to an active invitation
The Manbassador Challenges were designed around a simple question:
What would happen if we stopped asking men to enter workplace wellbeing through the door we preferred and created an entry point around something many already value?
Our answer was:
- Physical activity.
- Friendly competition.
- Camaraderie.
- A common goal.
Employers registered their organisation, created teams and invited colleagues to participate.
Challengers connected Strava through a phone or smartwatch and began walking, running, cycling, or recording other physical activities. The technology made participation simple; the team structure made it social.
For our third and largest challenge to date, we used Men’s Health Week and the football World Cup to build momentum around a target of one million active minutes.
England did not bring the World Cup home.
But 546 challengers across 24 organisations did bring home the million – with only three hours left, it was close.
The final total was:
- 1,012,705 active minutes
- 23,000 recorded activities
- 48 active minutes per participant, per day
- 10,570 views of men’s health information
The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that adults aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week. Our challengers averaged more than twice that amount. (GOV.UK)
Here are the five lessons we will carry into every future challenge.
1. Target the intervention at men, but make it accessible to everyone
The Manbassador brand, football theme, activity format and health messages were deliberately designed to resonate with men through the Manbassador mission and brand.
Research by Movember and More in Common found that British audiences respond more positively to direct health messages, practical examples and appeals to loyalty and supporting other men than to abstract discussions about masculinity.
But targeted does not mean exclusive.
Everyone could participate, support a team and benefit from the challenge.
One HM Land Registry participant increased their daily steps to an average of 15,000, with even more activity on weekends and home-working days.
They reported feeling more agile and lighter on their feet, having greater energy and losing 10kg during the challenge.
The lesson for wellbeing leads is clear: design with a priority group in mind without building a gate around the intervention.
2. Engagement gives you attention – use it well
Once people were checking leaderboards, discussing results and recording minutes, we had something many workplace health campaigns struggle to secure:
Sustained attention.
We used that attention to share education, signposting, campaign messages and practical actions relating to:
- Heart disease.
- Prostate cancer.
- Lung cancer.
- Bowel cancer.
- Suicide.
The content received 10,570 page views, with an average reading time of seven minutes.
This is the difference between distributing information and creating the conditions in which people are ready to receive it.
The challenge created the reason to open the email.
The health content gave that attention purpose.
3. Build small health actions inside the larger challenge
Each week included a mini challenge linked to one of the five health themes.
For suicide prevention, participants were encouraged to text one man and invite him for a ten-minute walk:
“Mate, I’m going for a walk this week. Come with me for ten minutes. No pressure, just be good to see you.”
During Men’s Health Week, another mini challenge linked to the Men’s Health Forum’s pharmacy campaign. Participants were encouraged to notice and use the pharmacies they were already walking, running or cycling past.
These actions reduced the distance between awareness and behaviour.
Rather than ending every message with “find out more”, we gave people one manageable action they could take immediately.
The lesson is simple: never waste engagement on information alone. Give people a next step that is specific, immediate and achievable.
4. A common goal turns individual effort into collective wellbeing
One participant told us:
“The challenge made me considerably more consistent. On days when I felt tired, busy or unmotivated, knowing their minutes would contribute to the collective target gave me the push to get out and move anyway.
The challenge helped me become fitter while also improving my mental health.”
The million-minute target made every walk count.
Teamwork created accountability without turning the challenge into another wellbeing obligation. Friendly competition added energy; camaraderie sustained it.
This strengths-based approach counts. A 2026 review found that 78% of established measures of masculinity had taken a predominantly deficit-based approach, while only 22% incorporated strengths-based elements.
Workplace and peer-led interventions can engage men through positive values such as competence, loyalty, service, protection and connection – not by presenting men themselves as the problem.
5. Celebrate impact – and create the next reason to continue
We ended the challenge with an awards ceremony, but its value was not simply in handing out trophies.
We brought organisations together, shared the data, told the human stories and recognised consistency, inclusion and impact.
Nexus explained that the weekly men’s health messages had been particularly useful. The prostate cancer content coincided with the organisation distributing approximately 150 prostate testing kits to male colleagues.
The challenge gave Nexus an engaged platform through which to reinforce potentially life-saving health activity.
The awards ceremony also strengthened trust between participants, employers, Manbassador and Active Teams.
We then revealed the next shared goal:
Climbing Everest together in November
A workplace campaign should not finish by sending everyone back to where they started.
It should recognise progress, reinforce new habits and offer the next milestone before momentum disappears.
The wider lesson for workplace wellbeing
Men are not unreachable.
Many are simply being approached through methods, language and settings that do not give them a compelling reason to engage.
Men’s health at work improves when we stop treating awareness as the outcome and start designing for participation, trust, action and retention.
Start with something people want to join.
Build connection around it.
Use the attention responsibly.
Measure what changes.
Then give people a reason to continue.
Express your interest in joining the Manbassador Everest Challenge for Men’s Health Month this November: https://activeteams.co.uk/manbassador
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