Now more than ever, movement and exercise is vital for the health of both employees and businesses and we hope some of the resources and challenges throughout 2022 will help you and your workplace to support employee wellbeing as we deal with the impacts of the pandemic. By offering employees physical activity opportunities or adopting good wellbeing practices, such as 50-minute meetings, coupled with 10-minute walk and stretch, it will in turn increase productivity, reenergise staff and encourage employee retention. By implementing small changes, workplaces will see the benefits long-term for both their employees and their business.
Each month there will be a new focus and some exciting offers available to try. You can expect to see a variety of challenges to take part in as a team, training that could help upskill your employees and also some valuable resources and toolkits to help you make a lasting change in your workplace. We also want to see how your getting your workplace/employees active so we will be giving away prizes every month too!
March saw a fantastic uptake of workplaces joining in the Big Team Challenge to complete 925km of Jewels of Japan. With over 70 teams taking part, we will definitely be holding more step challenges in the months to come. So, if you enjoyed taking part, or missed out and would like to next time, stay tuned!
Our October and November focus is all about mental health and the steps you can take to ensure your employees look after their wellbeing. Through self care practices and by highlighting the importance of a work-life balance, we can ensure that staff have the tools and knowledge of making their physical and mental wellbeing a priority.
Why is it so important?
Employers have an important role in permitting their staff time to pause during the working day and promote physical activity opportunities to help practice positive mental wellbeing. Company initiatives, as shown in the diagram below, help reduce health risks, enhances personal effectiveness, improve quality of life, and benefits the organisation’s bottom line through fostering teamwork.
What methods can be adopted?
Simple methods such as holding team challenges using step counters and advertising free YouTube workouts to do during lunch can help to encourage movement and time away from the desk. Or, for those working from home, their usual commuting time could be used for a 15-minute run, walk or cycle to set staff up for the day or allow them to unwind after.
Small steps can be taken, but we all hold the responsibility for looking after our workplace’s health. Covid has presented us with the perfect moment to make this positive step and improve everyone’s physical and mental wellbeing. So, get your workplace signed up to join in exciting new challenges each month and to gain plenty of ideas.
