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Encouraging employees to exercise at work

2 June 2009

Source: WorkplaceOHS

A recent article on the leading UK HR website Personnel Today summarised the findings of several overseas studies of strategies by employers to encourage their employees to be more physically active and hopefully avoid obesity.
Findings included the following:
  • Long-term adherence to exercise programs is often low, due to lack of pleasure or barriers that may exist to regularly visiting a health club. This is a major consideration for staff engaged in irregular shift patterns.

  • Physical activity interventions tend to be more effective when they are not prescribed by professionals, but chosen by the individual.

  • The activity has to be at least reasonably enjoyable, and readily accessible.

Strategies

Some on-site strategies that appear to work well include the following:
  • constructing a path around the work premises which encourages walking for pleasure
  • giving pedometers to employees
  • providing an area where employees can play fitness games on a Nintendo Wii games console — perhaps an updated version of the ‘real thing’ such as a table tennis table
  • installing signs which encourage employees to use stairs rather than lifts.

Further information

Griffiths L, ‘Obesity: The Big Issue’, published on Personnel Today website on 1 May 2009. (Accessed on 1 June 2009.)
Workplace health promotion: how to encourage employees to be physically active
These guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) include recommendations to help employers and workplace health professionals prevent the diseases commonly associated with a lack of physical activity.

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