Developing Your Active Living at Work Program

• Getting Ready to Start: The 6-Step Model
• Key Elements of Program Implementation

Getting Ready to Start: The 6-Step Model

The six steps listed below are consistent with program and policy development initiatives in any organizational setting.

A 'champion', management team, or group of employees usually generates the idea and then follows this 6-step process to put the idea into action:

1. Generate the idea
2. Establish the rationale
3. Form an employee committee
4. Test the feasibility in your organization
5. Check for employee interest
6. Prepare the proposal

Key Elements of Program Implementation

To ensure the implementation of a successful active living program, some key elements are required:

• High-Level Championing of the Initiative
• Building a Comprehensive Planning Team
• Criteria that Contribute to Program Success
• The Value of an Integrated Approach
• Effective Communication & Education

High-Level Championing of the Initiative

Generally speaking, corporate initiatives achieve the best results when a senior executive champions the initiative, and a planning team comprised of workers from all levels and areas of the organization reports to this champion. In a unionized environment, union leadership should also be engaged.

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Building a Comprehensive Planning Team

Feedback from many sectors of an organization is essential for the development of a successful business case for active living.

To be effective and sustainable, active living must be incorporated into the organization's planning framework and become part of the structured benefits that the company provides for its employees.

To ensure that this integration occurs, representatives from the following areas of the organization must be included on the planning team:

• Compensation and benefits
• Human resources
• Health and safety
• Health promotion
• Disability management
• Finance
• Internal communications
• Union/employee association

The team will also need enthusiastic proponents of active living in the workplace to mobilize the energy needed to get a program introduced and implemented.

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Criteria that Contribute to Program Success

• The program meets the needs of employees, both in terms of their physical health and their overall sense of well-being.
• The process is well-planned, officially introduced and includes a health education component.
• The program positioning incorporates the idea that employee health and well-being is primarily the responsibility of the employee, with thoughtful and sustained support from the organization and, where appropriate, the union.
• The organization needs to frame its active living initiatives as tools to help its employees maintain and improve their health and well-being.
• The program is flexible and allows employees to choose how best to incorporate active living into their daily lives.
• Individual health management is visibly supported by senior management.
• Communications activities link wellness programs to overall business goals such as adaptability, resilience, competitiveness, productivity, individual responsibility, etc.

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The Value of an Integrated Approach

An integrated approach is essential to organizational buy-in and program effectiveness.

Much of the literature on physical activity in the workplace favours integration in many forms, including:

• Integration of active living programs with other workplace wellness programs;
• Integration of individual, environmental and organizational approaches; and
• Integration of health promotion/wellness efforts with the overall business strategies of the organization.

All functions within the organization that have an 'investment' in the health of employees should be active in - and committed to - the plan.

Program interventions should include partnerships with the following internal structures and processes:

• Communications, public relations and recruiting strategies
• Training and development
• Human resources strategic plans
• Compensation and benefits strategies
• Occupational health and safety strategic plans
• Disability management processes
• Food services plans
• Budgeting processes for finance and risk management
• Long-term strategic plans for the organization
• Union collective agreements

Health promotion initiatives should be integrated into a corporate health strategy featuring three interactive systems:

• Job demands and worker characteristics;
• Work environment; and
• Extra-organizational influences.

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Effective Communications and Education

Health and wellness have to be incorporated into the organization's internal communications program.

Senior management needs to demonstrate and articulate its support for:

• Optimal employee health;
• Individual employee choice and self-responsibility in the matter of health; and
• The company's support of healthy lifestyle choices and productive work environments.

Education, awareness and motivation opportunities should be available to all employees as part of a general strategy. These should focus on:

• Cardiovascular fitness;
• Musculoskeletal health; including back health, repetitive strain and ergonomics;
• Stress management; and
• Health self-management skills, such as accessing community resources, appropriate use of the health-care system, and self-management of common and/or chronic health conditions.