Potential Program Barriers

• Motivating Staff to Participate & Other Barriers
• CFLRI Barrier Statistics

Motivating Staff to Participate & Other Barriers

One of the major challenges organizations face is motivating and sustaining staff commitment to active living interventions. The same can be said for health clubs who have many more members than regular participants.

Ultimately, the organization can only educate and provide the opportunity - it is the employee that must choose a more active lifestyle. However, the organization can offer incentives that help make active choices easy choices.

Sustained communications and education, encouragement, corporate philosophy and behaviour are the critical factors that influence motivation and participation.

Many of the studies on workplace active living and wellness programs and strategies have small sample sizes and/or low participation rates in the programs.

Most of these studies indicate a need for initiatives to increase employee participation, and to increase positive impact on employee health, organizational effectiveness and the quality of any research conducted.

Dishman, et al (1998) report from their meta-analysis of published literature that participation rates in workplace active living programs are at best 20-30% of the workplace population. Other studies have looked specifically at the determinants of high participation rates in programs, determining the barriers, and the factors contributing to increased participation.

Their findings are summarized below.

The determinants that affect participation rates are:

• Attitude toward the program;
• Self-efficacy expectation; and
• Social support.

Promotion for programs should focus first on health benefits and second on overcoming barriers. Sustained promotion and marketing of programs is critical to participation rates.

Other barriers that should be addressed when structuring an active living program include:

• Convenient times and locations;
• Flex-time to allow employees to participate;
• Onsite facilities; and
• Management support/marketing.

CFLRI Barrier Statistics

The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (CFLRI) reports:

• Almost half of companies report inadequate space for implementing or expanding physical activity programs on-site.
• 35% of companies consider the lack of on-site facilities (showers, bicycle racks, etc.) as a barrier to the implementation or expansion of physical activity programs.
• Two out of five companies consider a lack of funds as a significant barrier to implementing or expanding physical activity programs.
• 26% of companies consider lack of employee motivation to participate or to organize physical activity programs as a significant barrier.
• Almost one-third of companies consider a lack of qualified staff or volunteers to manage the program as a barrier.
• 20% of companies consider the lack of management support or interest as a significant barrier to the implementation or expansion of physical activity programs.
• Participation is dependent on organizational context, therefore staff must participate in development.
• Targeted stage-of-change-based messages are effective, which means that organizations need benchmark information about their audiences.