The Great Challenge is a health psychology-based intervention being developed in France to promote physical activity among workers. Over a four-week period, participating employees are encouraged to accumulate as many “energy cubes” as possible, with each cube representing 15 minutes of continuous physical activity. To encourage social motivation and collective participation, cubes are doubled when activities are carried out with colleagues.
At the centre of the intervention is a dedicated mobile application, currently under development, designed to support collaborative engagement across participating organisations. The concept brings together all participants within the “Great Challenge Community”, while also allowing each person to contribute to progress at three collective levels: their team, their organisation and the wider community of participating organisations.
This approach aims to strengthen motivation by shifting the focus from individual responsibility alone towards shared goals and collective encouragement. By making movement more social, visible and connected to workplace culture, The Great Challenge may be particularly useful for engaging people who are less physically active or who find it difficult to include movement in their daily routines.
The application is being designed to include an energy cube counter, where participants can log minutes of physical activity and see them automatically converted into cubes. In addition to personal tracking, the app will allow users to visualise collective progress in real time at team, organisational and community levels.
Planned features also include a visual calendar showing daily cube accumulation, scheduled physical activity events organised by teams or workplaces, and supporting resources such as videos, podcasts and information about local sports or physical activity opportunities. A dynamic feed is also expected to help maintain engagement throughout the challenge period.
The Great Challenge mobile application is currently in development and is expected to become available soon. Further updates will be shared as the application progresses, including information on availability and how organisations can get involved.