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with their employees. The good news is that many organizations were interested in learning more
about the app following the research study when they believed they might have more time to
focus on understanding the value of using and promoting the app to their workforces.
Another challenge was that several organizations were required to offer services for their
employees in both French and English, but only an English version of the app was available at
the beginning of the study. Several organizations indicated they would have participated had the
app been available in French. This important feature was added as part of the rollout of Hugr for
Chambers Plan members and also made the app more viable for federal and national
organizations. This was on example of the app's agility and maturity throughout the research
study period.
Because participants who joined the study were primarily female and Caucasian, we
cannot comment on the app's potential impact on more diverse populations. Addressing that
factor will require more tailored research.
The second major issue that emerged was engagement with the app. Initially, we thought
that people with a higher level of loneliness would be more interested in engaging with the app
and taking advantage of the resource. However, the data did not support this hypothesis. The
results suggested no difference in the key variables regarding who used the app. In other words,
there was no difference in engagement with the app when we compared participants who
reported a high degree of loneliness to those who reported a low degree.
Engagement overall with the app became the critical challenge for gaining data. Although
initial engagement was high, this decreased significantly over time. It is usual for app attrition to
be relatively high. In this study, many users engaged with the app four to five times a month
during the first three months. This included interactions like opening the app and not necessarily
