05 Nov 2018

Top tips to encourage employees to be more active at work

In the UK, the average office worker sits for 8.9 hours a day. Almost 70 per cent of sitting takes place at work, with 73 per cent of workers only leaving their desk for toilet or tea breaks. Ongoing sedentary behaviour poses a real risk to all employees, no matter how fit and healthy they are outside of work, found Get Britain Standing, Sitting Survey (2017).

Only 33 per cent of line managers are aware of the health risks of sedentary behaviour, according to the Active Working Survey (2017). The health risks include:

cardiovascular health problems

cancer
type 2 diabetes
weight gain
mental health problems
musculoskeletal issues
mortality.

To address this, we’ve pulled together some simple tips to encourage employees to be more active at work:

Target sitting time, not exercise

Instead of focusing on time in the gym, focus on how long employees are sitting and aim to reduce this. Growing scientific research suggests that sitting for more than four hours per day puts us at risk, irrespective of exercise outside of work – Sitting Survey (2017).

Take regular breaks

Encourage employees to walk over to colleagues instead of sending an email. Ask them to stand up when having a meeting or taking a phone call and ensure staff take regular screen breaks by physically walking away.

Go for a walk at lunchtime

Encourage staff to eat their lunch away from their desk and for them to leave the office and take a walk. It’s also great cardio exercise, lowering levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol while increasing levels of HDL (good) cholesterol.

Take the stairs

Instead of using the lifts, ask staff to take the stairs. Climbing stairs uses eight to nine times more energy than sitting and burns more calories per minute than jogging, so has great health benefits in addition to reducing sitting time.

Standing desks

Encourage employees to switch between standing and sitting at their desk, with the aim of doing this for 15-30 minutes per hour. Active workstations have also been found to have other positive effects on mind, body and productivity.

Move more outside of work

If employees spend most of their working day sitting, encourage them to make simple changes in the evening so that they aren’t clocking too many additional sitting hours outside of work. This could be limiting time spent watching TV, getting up to wash the dishes, parking further away from their destination when driving, going to a gym class or by doing simple exercises at home.

This article was provided by Westfield Health.