“Workplace Wellness: Walk this Way” was hosted by experts from ChageLab Solutions, a group who works to develop innovative policies to achieve healthier communities. The webinar focused on ChangeLab’s newest resource Walk This Way which seeks to promote policies to increase physical activity in and around workplaces in hopes of helping more Americans meet the Physical Activity Guidelines. The guide is provided as a resource to wellness promoters who may be working with communities, or as a champion for their workplace.
The first few policies discussed are focused on increasing physical activity in the workplace itself. Benefits of physical activity in the workplace are numerous and include improved employee health, greater productivity, and decreased healthcare costs. One of the most interesting policies was giving paid time for physical activity. This type of policy encourages employees to be active during the workday by including it as part of their paid time. Employees don’t have to “clock out” or add extra time at the end of the day to make up for time spent exercising. While it is effective, this policy may be difficult to implement given the amount of buy-in needed from leadership. In addition to paid time for activity, another interesting policy was a workplace wellness tax credit. Under this policy, private employers who develop, adopt, and implement workplace wellness policies are provided monetary incentives. This strategy is often used to promote workplace wellness programs in small businesses, who are less likely to have such programs. Again, because these policies require buy-in at higher levels, such as local government, they may be somewhat difficult to implement.
The second part of the webinar focused on policies to increase physical activity around workplaces. For most people, commuting to work involves sitting in a single-occupant vehicle for 30 minutes to an hour each way. However, if we work to improve the infrastructure of communities around our homes and workplaces, more people would have the opportunity to include active transportation as part of their commute. The Walk This Way guide focuses on four different strategies to improve the infrastructure and systems related to active commuting. One policy, complete streets, involves re-thinking the design of our streets, which typically cater to automobiles, to include safe and accessible transportation options for pedestrians and cyclists. Using this strategy, streets are re-designed to include features such as bike lanes, parking lanes, sidewalks, and median islands, which make it easier and safer for people to walk and bike.
Overall, Walk This Way provides excellent recommendations for anyone looking to improve access and opportunities for physical activity. These days, many people spend a majority of their time at or around their workplace. Using strategies like those described in this resource will allow us help people incorporate physical activity into their workday, which may be more effective than trying to increase physical activity during leisure time. As resources like this continue to become available, physical activity promoters have even more tools at their disposal to help people lead more active lifestyles.
Workplace wellness programs are slowly making their way into the limelight and I love it! Just like children spend most of their days in sitting in school, adults spend most of their time sitting at work and during their commute. Children have been receiving more attention to this issue since they are a vulnerable population, but adults need to have some ways to be more active in the day, too! Ultimately, workplace wellness is a win-win for all since it results in increased productivity and health. Incentive is key for attitude and behavior change. Now to figure out how to convince government officials and policymakers…
Thanks for your comment, Joanna! I agree that it is extremely exciting to see workplace wellness programs becoming more commonplace. I think there are a lot of resources available for employers who are interested in offering such programs. This guide is just another example of that. I agree with you when you say we still have to find a way to convince decision makers and leaders of the importance of providing a healthy environment for employees. Especially since a majority of our days are spent at work. I do think that having these resources will make it easier to make the “business case” for physical activity and healthy eating in and around the workplace. There is certainly a lot of work being done around the economic benefits of such practices, which unfortunately is the aspect most likely to grab the attention of decision makers. As physical activity promoters, we do have to take it upon ourselves to determine what message is going to resonate with those whose actions we wish to impact. In this case, showing business leaders and policy makers that the bottom line can be improved through better productivity, less absenteeism, and better overall morale will go a long way in persuading them to implement workplace wellness programs.
Hi Ginny,
First off, this was a great review of the chosen webinar. Even without seeing it for myself, I still feel like I have the most important take away points from this session. I like the idea of re-designing streets to help encourage and promote more physical activity. I think this is especially important here in the south, where in some areas, streets are only designed for automobile transportation. In many areas, especially in my hometown, there are no bike lanes and there are limited sidewalks. So even if people wanted to ride their bikes or go jogging, it could be very dangerous to do so. We also live during a time where many jobs are spent sitting inside at a desk where physical activity is definitely limited. I think many people can agree they wouldn’t mind getting a little extra money to exercise at work. But like you said, there has to be buy-in from upper levels. I do think with initiatives such as this one, we’ll definitely see a shift in the norms of how we get people to meet the physical activity guidelines.
Thanks so much for your comment. I’m glad you found the post useful! I thought you brought up a really great point by specifically mentioning street/urban design in the south and how it can be much different from other parts of the country. This is one of the key issues that face physical activity and active transportation promoters. Unlike places with dense connectivity and tons of mixed-land use like what we typically see in the north, many southern cities are victims of urban sprawl. Atlanta in particular is a great example of this phenomenon because you have the downtown/metro area where a lo of people work, but when you look at where most people live, you can see that a great proportion of the population is located in suburbs that aren’t very well-connected. This makes active transportation to work almost impossible just given the sheer distances people need to travel in order to reach their place of employment. In addition, the south in general isn’t known for very well-developed mass transit or public transportation.
Great review of the Walk this Way guide Ginny. The commuting portion of your blog really resonates with me. My husband and I both commute about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes one way, and we have found it frustrating to not have an avenue to safely incorporate activity into our route. While previously living in Texas, we had the opportunity to drive partway during our commute and bike into our workplace by using a greenway trail. This unfortunately, this has not been an option after relocating to Georgia. Improving policy to consider infrastructure and access is greatly needed, as you stated, we are not reducing the amount of time spent at work, it is important to have the resources to promote active lifestyles.
Thanks, Lashawnna! Wow, that is quite a long commute! I completely agree that there are many ways in which policy could be improved to support at least a portion of your commute being active. Being able to take public transit or even a greenway for part of the journey would definitely add to the amount of physical activity people could obtain.
You are also absolutely correct that people are spending more time at work now than ever before. That is why resources like this guide are so important. They can help employers and even policy makers understand the ways they can work to promote physical activity for their employees while they’re at work. It also does a good job of explaining the benefits to the company when employees are more active.
Hi Ginny,
This was a very interesting blog post. It would be great if my future employer provided paid time for exercise! I would love to know your thoughts on a few questions I had when reading. First, did the speaker address the quality of evidence surrounding the benefits of physical activity in the workplace, or make any general comments regarding the literature in this area? I am curious how substantial the evidence base is. Is it compelling enough to entice business owners, but we as researchers and practitioners are not doing an adequate job disseminating these findings?
Second, what do you think should be targeted as a long-term strategy for increasing physical activity, in the workplace or around the workplace? When thinking about it, I feel like changes in the workplace would be easier, but changes around the workplace could better promote lasting behavior change. Would buy-in from top city leaders be easier to obtain than from many small business owners? It certainly is a dilemma to try to solve these big issues, and it requires many steps in the process and innovative thinkers to be involved.
Hi Emily,
Thanks for your comment!
I completely agree that these are things we would all love to find in our future places of employment.
Your first question is a great one! While it wasn’t directly addressed in the webinar, the Walk This Way document itself is a guidance document. Often times this means that the strategies discussed are evidence-based and the document is just trying to translate the science into easy-to-understand, actionable steps for people who are interested in making changes, but may not have the time or the expertise to go into the literature and search for themselves. In the specific case of worksite wellness, there is a pretty good base of evidence to support the fact that when implemented, certain strategies can definitely improve physical activity in the workplace. You are thinking right along the same lines as me in terms of getting this information into the hands of business leaders and decision makers. Most of the time we as health promoters tend to try and promote physical activity and nutrition simply for the reason of health. However, that doesn’t always resonate with individuals, especially decision-makers, from other sectors, such as business. What we need to do a better job of is finding out which benefits of physical activity and nutrition will be of most interest to these key stakeholders. So maybe we don’t promote a physically active workplace because it’s “healthy”, but instead maybe we show business leaders data that supports the idea that new talented employees are drawn to businesses that offer flexible work spaces and healthy food options on-site.
In terms of long-term strategies, I think we are doing a good job of starting a culture shift. It’s getting to a point where many people expect to be able to be active and have healthy food options around their workplace. This will help shift the culture even further because in order to stay competitive for talented employees, worksites will have to step up and offer these things. In terms of changing the environment around workplaces, I do think you’re on the right track as far as getting city officials involved. In short, if cities want to attract businesses, they will have to make themselves appealing in terms of what they can offer an employer and its employees. Access to physical activity and healthy foods are two factors that could greatly influence where businesses choose to locate themselves.