Never overlook the importance of a fit workforce. Employees who stay active aren’t just healthier; they’re also happier and more productive. This means that if you successfully encourage your workers to exercise, there are direct benefits for your company. Through the following tips, you can incorporate exercise into your daily activities, helping both your workers’ health and your bottom line:
Set Up Standing Desks
Standing desks, or elevated desks that employees must stand to use, encourage employees to burn calories and build muscle as they work. Setting up your workplace this way thus makes it convenient for your workers to get more physical activity, since all they have to do is go along with the office plan. Of course, you’ll have to make exceptions for employees who will have trouble standing the entire day, such as those with disabilities. But in general, this is a great way to encourage fitness.
As an alternative to standing desks, you can give employees exercise balls to sit on at traditional desks. This option is particularly good for getting employees to build core muscles. It also has the advantage of being less disruptive to daily activities, since workers don’t have to get used to standing instead of sitting. Many employees will thus be happy to switch to this.
Make Meetings Active
Besides changing the desk arrangement, you can get employees to be more active by modifying your meetings. One of the easiest ways to do this is to give them permission to stand or even pace during those meetings. Anyone who wants to get physical activity can thus do so without worrying about disrupting others.
If you want to go a step further, plan meetings that involve walking around the building whenever it is possible to do so. Say you intend to discuss accounting practices and storage strategies at your next meeting. You can first walk to the accounting department to discuss the former topic, and then go to the warehouse to talk about the latter. Not only does this help you incorporate fitness, but it may make it easier to demonstrate what you’re saying in each meeting in a way that is vivid and memorable.
Shore Up Your Stairwell
If your workplace is several stories above ground level, encouraging employees to take the stairs on their way in is an easy way to get them to exercise more. To do this, add paintings, inspirational quotes, and other interesting and attractive features on the stairwell walls. You should also extend heating and air conditioning into the stairwell if you haven’t already.
Make Exercise Convenient
The more convenient it is for employees to exercise during, before, or after work, the more they will do so. To improve convenience, try adding bike racks for those who want to cycle to work, as well as showers so they can clean themselves off after exercising. Likewise, if you include more breaks during the workday and give employees more flexible schedules, they’ll have more chances to exercise.
To learn more about helping your employees stay fit and healthy in the workplace, contact F.A.S.T. today.
