Bupa
Bupa
Shaping the future of wellness engagement at Bupa
Bupa set out to increase engagement across its wellness initiatives for employees, customers, and partners. I worked as part of a strategic design engagement to clarify the role of wellness within Bupa’s broader ecosystem, uncover key engagement drivers, and shape a clear strategic direction.
Through research, co-design, and close collaboration with internal teams, we developed an engagement strategy and roadmap to guide improvements across both digital and in-person wellness services, while also strengthening Bupa’s internal capability in human-centred design.
Role
Senior Strategic Designer
Organisation
Huddle, Strategic Design Agency
Client
Bupa
Focus
Strategic design, service design, wellness engagement, capability uplift
“By listening to the people who use and deliver Bupa’s wellness services, we uncovered what mattered and built a strategy that responded to those needs.
–Project reflection journal
The challenge
Bupa offered a broad range of wellness initiatives, but engagement varied across cohorts and channels. There was limited shared understanding of:
- What wellness meant to different audiences
- Which services were driving meaningful engagement
- How digital and in-person experiences should work together
- Where to focus investment for the greatest impact
The challenge was to move past isolated initiatives and create a coherent, user-centred wellness engagement model that could scale.
“I loved Lucy’s approach to helping us understand HCD and how it can help us solve the issues we’re facing.
–Bupa feedback
My role & responsibilities
As Senior Strategic Designer, I:
- Led research and co-design activities with customers, staff, and partners
- Facilitated workshops to map current and future wellness service experiences
- Synthesised insights into clear opportunity areas and strategic principles
- Helped define an engagement strategy and prioritised roadmap
- Collaborated with product and marketing teams to translate insights into action
- Embedded human-centred design practices through close, co-located delivery
–Concept sketches
Approach & thinking
The work was grounded in human-centred and participatory design, recognising that wellness engagement is deeply personal and context-dependent.
Key elements included:
- Interviews across multiple cohorts to understand motivations, barriers, and expectations
- Mapping current-state wellness experiences to identify friction points and gaps
- Co-design workshops to explore future-state service models and engagement patterns
- Synthesis of insights into a clear narrative about the role of wellness within Bupa
- Ongoing collaboration with internal teams to ensure insights were usable and actionable
Alongside delivery, a strong focus was placed on capability uplift, enabling teams to apply human-centred methods beyond the engagement.
–Concept sketches
–Team workshop
–War room
–Project workshop
Outcomes & impact
The engagement provided strategic clarity and practical direction for Bupa’s wellness initiatives:
- Clarified the role of wellness within Bupa’s broader service ecosystem
- Identified key engagement drivers and unmet needs across diverse cohorts
- Defined opportunity areas to improve participation and perceived value
- Delivered a prioritised roadmap to guide future wellness initiatives
- Created an engagement model spanning digital and in-person services
- Supported internal teams to adopt and apply human-centred design practices
“This work has given us a clear direction and the tools to evolve our wellness services into something more human, more connected, and more impactful.
–Bupa
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