Health And Wellness In The WorkplaceHealth And Wellness In The Workplace

Gaining senior staff reinforcement is critical to the success of a physical activity program.

Whether the changes you’d like to make involve the work environment, overall policies or specific programs, successfully implementing your ideas is dependent upon senior staff backing.

Support from upper management is critical for 3 reasons:

• You need their support to involve staff members in a workplace initiative.
• When management pays attention to and supports initiative, employees also see the initiative as worthwhile.
• Senior Leadership has the power to give work time and money to support the plan.

It’s important to keep senior staff involved throughout a physical exercise plan, but at three points you’ll need support for:

• An central concept, including a go-ahead to evaluate what workers want to do within the limitations of your workplace environment.
• A detailed plan (based on the assessment above) coupled with resources to carry out the plan.
• Evaluating the initiative to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the initiative.

Approaching Senior Management

Prior to approaching management to gain initial backing for promoting physical activity during the workday, do your homework.

• Prepare a company case clearly outlining how the company will benefit by promoting physical exercise during the workday.
• List the individual, social and corporate benefits of physical activity and the benefits of being active during work.
• Present some basic ideas about what the program could include. See the Success Stories and Ideas sections on this website to highlight what other workplaces have done.

Expect questions such as the following from upper management:

• How will this help our organization?
• How can we encourage employees to participate?
• How much will it cost to operate this program or make this change?
• How will we know a year from now whether or not this was a meaningful use of time and resources?

Ask managers about the types of activities they would support. Often managers have their own ideas they would like to see acted on to improve the workplace.

Remember to include middle managers when gaining support for your plan. They may be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical activity challenges.