How 24/7 health monitoring helps teams return to work safely

Originally published on July 21, 2020

24/7 health monitoring can help organizations return to work more safely by giving people daily context on Recovery, Sleep, and respiratory rate instead of relying on a single screening at the door. In Episode 83 of the WHOOP Podcast, Deborah Poole, Chief Business Officer of Enterprise at WHOOP, explains how that idea became WHOOP Back to Work after leaders across sports, education, healthcare, construction, and government asked how to bring the same data they used personally to their teams. This article breaks down how WHOOP approached early detection, privacy, employee benefits, and workplace resilience during a period when many organizations were rebuilding operations in real time.

To listen to Episode 83 of the WHOOP Podcast in full, head to the WHOOP Podcast on Spotify.

How did WHOOP Back to Work start?

WHOOP Back to Work started as a member demand before it became a pandemic use case. Poole explained that leaders who already used WHOOP for their own performance kept asking how to extend the same visibility to their teams.

That matters for two reasons. First, the enterprise idea did not begin as a temporary response to COVID-19. Second, the program grew from real adoption among executives, coaches, military leaders, and managers who had already seen how WHOOP measures Recovery, Sleep, and Strain in daily life.

Poole said the requests were consistent across sectors. A team could mean a corporate department, a college program, or a military unit, but the underlying question was the same: how do leaders support performance and health at group scale when each person still has an individual physiology?

Poole summarized the origin clearly:

"A very common refrain we hear is, I have been wearing WHOOP for a while. It has changed my life. How do I get my team on it?"

What you should take away

• WHOOP Back to Work grew from existing member demand, not from a single short term campaign.
• Leaders across business, sports, and government wanted the same physiological visibility for teams that they already used for themselves.
• The enterprise case for WHOOP started with performance and readiness, then expanded into workplace health during COVID-19.

If you want to hear Poole unpack the early demand from leaders across industries, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

Why did respiratory rate become such an important return-to-work metric?

From that enterprise interest, the conversation quickly narrowed to one metric that held unusual value during COVID-19: respiratory rate. WHOOP highlighted respiratory rate because it tends to stay relatively stable for each person, which makes deviations easier to spot against an individual baseline.

Poole and Will Ahmed pointed to a public case that made the logic easy to understand. Professional golfer Nick Watney tested negative early in the week, woke up later with an elevated respiratory rate on WHOOP, then chose to get tested again and learned he was positive. That story matched the direction of published WHOOP respiratory rate research on COVID-19 and aligned with other case reports discussed in WHOOP members fighting COVID-19.

Ahmed also described how WHOOP used Recovery internally. Early in the pandemic, a red Recovery was one signal that someone should stay out of the office because it could reflect illness, poor readiness, or a run-down system that was more vulnerable to getting sick. That approach connected return-to-work planning with the broader logic behind WHOOP Recovery: physiology changes before a person always feels the full effect.

Poole used the Watney timeline to explain why respiratory rate mattered:

"Nick Watney, the pro golfer on the PGA Tour, tested negative on a Tuesday, woke up on a Friday morning, looked at his WHOOP data, saw an elevated respiratory rate, went and got a COVID test, and tested positive."

What you should take away

• Respiratory rate is useful in part because each person usually has a stable baseline that makes deviations easier to detect.
• The Nick Watney case gave a public example of respiratory-rate change appearing before a positive COVID-19 test was confirmed.
• WHOOP used Recovery and respiratory rate as part of day-to-day return-to-work decisions inside the company.

If you want to hear Poole go deeper on respiratory rate and the Nick Watney case, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

Which organizations were using WHOOP to get back to work?

Once the value of continuous monitoring was clearer, the next question was where it could work at scale. Poole described a wide range of organizations, but they shared one feature: people still had to perform together in person.

The PGA Tour became an early public example. Ahmed described a system that combined testing, respiratory-rate review, masks, and clear protocols for players, caddies, staff, and media. Poole stressed that broad coverage matters because group safety improves when the whole operating population is included.

The same logic extended to the University of Tennessee, where WHOOP was provided across the athletic department as schools worked through return-to-campus planning. Poole framed that deployment as part performance tool, part health-monitoring layer, and part operational support for a population with training, travel, academic stress, and shared facilities.

From there, the use cases expanded into industries with harder physical conditions. Poole highlighted Expo 2020 Dubai, the World Expo construction site, where thousands of workers used WHOOP while building what she and Ahmed described as a $15 billion project. She also discussed work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service for wildfire response, research relationships with Denver Health Medical Center, and an operational case at Blade, the New York helicopter company that handled critical organ transport during the pandemic. Related context also appears in the Duke University COVID-19 recovery study article and in broader conversations about how WHOOP may indicate that you are getting sick.

Poole gave one of the clearest scale examples when she described the Dubai project:

"There have been at times over 10,000 construction workers wearing WHOOP on the site."

What you should take away

• WHOOP Back to Work was used in sports, higher education, construction, healthcare, government, and aviation operations.
• The strongest early use cases involved populations that still had to work together on site.
• Large deployments showed that continuous monitoring could support both worker readiness and operational continuity.

How does WHOOP handle privacy for workplace programs?

As those pilots expanded, privacy became the gating question for many employers. Poole was direct that WHOOP treats individual data as private by default.

The default model she described is simple: an employer can provide WHOOP to employees without seeing each person’s personal data. In certain regulated settings, WHOOP can support respiratory-rate deviation alerts, but Poole said those programs sit inside stricter protocols and different compliance requirements.

For organizations considering a workplace rollout, that distinction matters. A performance and health program gains trust when people know the purpose, the boundaries, and the limited circumstances under which any alerting exists.

Poole stated the rule in plain terms:

"WHOOP will never share your personal data without your consent, including with your employer."

What you should take away

• WHOOP workplace programs are built around individual privacy by default.
• Employers can provide WHOOP without receiving personal data from employees.
• Respiratory-rate deviation alerts were described for certain regulated industries with added protocols.

If you want to hear Poole unpack privacy settings and employer access, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What workplace habits actually change when people use WHOOP?

After privacy, the next issue is whether continuous monitoring changes behavior in a useful way. Poole argued that it does, and she pointed to sleep, exercise timing, alcohol, caffeine, and travel habits as the most visible examples.

Ahmed added a concrete workplace practice from inside WHOOP: employees could earn a $100 monthly bonus for getting above 85 percent Sleep Performance. He said roughly 75 percent of the company hit that threshold in a typical month, which created a shared standard around sleep rather than a culture built around exhaustion.

Poole broadened the point beyond one company policy. She said members tend to sleep more, align harder training with better recovery, and cut behaviors that show up clearly in their data, especially alcohol close to bedtime and late caffeine. The episode show notes added several outcome patterns seen across studied populations: 41 more minutes of sleep per night, a 10 percent increase in high-quality sleep, a 20 percent reduction in reports of feeling ill, 3 more workouts completed per month, and a 50 percent reduction in late-night caffeine consumption.

Ahmed used those examples to make a larger performance point. An organization can lower strain by asking less of people, or it can help people build more recovery so they can handle higher strain without burning out. WHOOP is most useful when it supports the second path.

Ahmed gave the clearest numeric example from internal practice:

"We give people a $100 a month bonus if they get over 85 percent of their sleep performance."

What you should take away

• WHOOP data can change day-to-day habits around sleep, exercise timing, alcohol, caffeine, and travel.
• A sleep incentive tied to Sleep Performance gave WHOOP employees a concrete reason to prioritize recovery.
• The episode show notes reported behavior changes that included more sleep, more workouts, and less late-night caffeine.
• Workplace performance improves when recovery is treated as a capacity input rather than an afterthought.

If you want to hear Poole go deeper on sleep incentives and behavior change at work, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What does this episode suggest about the future of work?

Those behavior changes lead to a bigger point about work itself. Poole said many organizations were moving into a hybrid period where some jobs could stay remote, some had to stay in person, and many people were trying to sustain performance without a predictable timeline.

Her framing was less about office design and more about resilience. People needed tools that helped them understand readiness in a long period of uncertainty, especially when home environment, caregiving, travel, stress, and work demands varied so much from one person to the next.

Ahmed agreed and said the long-term shift had been coming for years. In his view, COVID-19 accelerated the adoption curve for 24/7 health monitoring by making the need for daily physiological context much easier to see.

Poole captured the emotional reality of that period with a line that still holds up:

"You thought you were running a 5K, and then you found out it was a marathon."

What you should take away

• Poole expected work to stay hybrid for an extended period, with different needs across industries and households.
• Continuous monitoring became more relevant when uncertainty lasted longer than most organizations first expected.
• Ahmed argued that COVID-19 accelerated a broader move toward 24/7 health monitoring.

The bottom line

• WHOOP Back to Work began with demand from leaders who already used WHOOP personally and wanted the same visibility for their teams.
• Respiratory-rate deviations became a key return-to-work signal because the metric is typically stable within a person and easier to compare against baseline.
• The Nick Watney case showed how an elevated respiratory rate on WHOOP could prompt earlier testing during COVID-19.
• Early workplace use cases were strongest in groups that still needed to operate in person, including the PGA Tour, the University of Tennessee, Expo 2020 Dubai, the U.S. Forest Service, healthcare systems, and Blade.
• WHOOP workplace programs were presented with privacy as the default, with personal data staying private unless a member consented.
• Recovery-focused workplace habits, including stronger sleep behavior, gave teams a way to raise capacity instead of only reducing workload.
• A sleep incentive tied to Sleep Performance showed how organizations can use physiology data to reinforce healthier daily behavior.
• The episode framed 24/7 health monitoring as part of a longer shift toward workplace systems built around readiness, resilience, and individual baselines.

Frequently asked questions about things discussed in this episode

How does WHOOP help organizations monitor health between lab tests?

WHOOP helps organizations monitor health between lab tests by giving each person a daily view of metrics such as respiratory rate, Recovery, and Sleep that can show changes from baseline.

How does WHOOP use respiratory rate in a workplace setting?

WHOOP uses respiratory rate as an individual baseline metric, so a clear deviation can prompt a person or an organization to follow existing health protocols more quickly.

What does WHOOP do for teams that still need to work in person?

WHOOP supports in-person teams by giving workers and leaders a continuous view of readiness that can sit alongside testing, masking, and site-specific safety rules.

How does WHOOP handle privacy for employee data?

WHOOP handles privacy by keeping personal data private unless the member consents, and Poole said employers can provide WHOOP without seeing individual data.

What does WHOOP measure that can support daily readiness decisions?

WHOOP measures metrics that support daily readiness decisions, including Recovery, Sleep, Strain, heart rate behavior, and respiratory rate trends.

What does WHOOP show about sleep and workplace performance?

WHOOP shows that sleep is a practical performance input, and the episode linked better sleep behavior with stronger readiness, healthier habits, and better day-to-day work capacity.

For teams that still need people on site, WHOOP turns daily physiology into a practical signal for readiness, risk, and recovery.