Wellness Plans : Health Promotion Programs – Getting Employees Active.

• Make sure that your building’s stairwells are clean, attractive and safe, and post signs stimulating workforce to use the stairs.

• Establish a wellness newsletter or intranet.

• Promote the Activity Tracker and encourage staff members to track their physical activity every week.

• be creative, and make the most of the workspace you have. for example, mark off a safe walking path inside or around the building.

You may also set up a training circuit, highlighting features of the workplace like stairs.

• Provide physical activity opportunities at different times to accommodate night-, shift-, and part-time workers.

• For staff in remote or satellite offices, offer equal access to key wellness programs via the intranet. Adapt challenges to suit their environment and take advantage of local facilities and resources.

• Make exercise available to workforce with special needs. Adapt information and activities for any staff who are visually impaired or physically disabled in addition to for people  who speak English as a second language.

• Educate personnel about exercise using information from reputable sources such as the Alberta Center for Active Living.

• Provide facilities that invite onsite physical activity. Possibilities include bicycle racks, an exercise room, change rooms with lockers and showers, and safe and attractive grounds for walking.

• Hold walking meetings.

• Be certain to encourage personnel to walk to colleagues’ offices in lieu of e-mailing or phoning.

• Make sure to set up a stretching room. This low-cost program requires only a room, stretching mats, stability balls and medicine balls. Put up posters that show stretches and exercises.

• Give incentives like shoe bags, ball caps, T-shirts or water bottles to reward staff participation.

• Loan out pedometers for three months, so that employees can determine how many steps they typically take and how much activity they need to add to get basic health benefits.

• Make space for workforce to plant and maintain a flowerbed or garden at the worksite. Use any resulting produce for meetings and potluck lunches or donate it to charity.

• Plan a worksite health fair.

• Hire a certified fitness professional to design and manage an on-site workout facility.

• Supply employees with active wear that shows off the organization logo.