Strategic Positioning of Active Living at Work

• Organizational Goals for Active Living at Work
• Employee Benefits of Active Living at Work
• Company Benefits of Active Living at Work
• Attracting Top Employees with Active Living Initiatives

Organizational Goals for Active Living at Work

The goals for developing an active living at work program are:

• To create a 'quality culture' and work environment that supports individual employee health and productivity;
• To integrate the active living at work program with the organization's human resources strategy;
• To foster partnership and cooperation with employees, their associations and unions; and
• To engage employees in developing effective active living at work strategies and projects.

Employee Benefits Associated with Active Living at Work

Active living at work programs benefit employees by:

• Providing employees with an understanding of the tools needed to manage their own health;
• Providing employees with access to information (and education) on a wide variety of health and wellness topics;
• Focusing on the employees as well as their families, in addition to the communities in which they live;
• Contributing to individual employee satisfaction and productivity; and
• Helping individual employees become more skilled in:
  • self-mastery;
  • self-care;
  • self-management;
  • self-responsibility; and
  • individual stress management.

Company Benefits Associated with Active Living at Work

Active living at work programs can benefit companies by:

• Fulfilling the need for 'sharing responsibility' between the company and its employees;
• Potentially achieving a bottom-line payback from the adopted strategy;
• Providing a platform for union/management cooperation and support;
• Supporting what the business and organizational culture needs to be in the future (i.e., adaptive to change, self-responsible, etc.);
• Attracting high-quality employees, since the contemporary worker considers his or her health a priority;
• Supporting the business case (i.e., makes a contribution to controlling organizational costs in a concrete, demonstrable way);
• Providing a way of measuring the effectiveness of any program that is put in place; and
• Reducing the incidence of stress-related illness and injury.

Employees, the company, and the union should all see these benefits as both desirable and sustainable.

Attracting Top Employees with Active Living at Work Initiatives

In the business world, ratings of the top companies to work for consistently show that the availability of physical activity facilities and other health promotion programs is a high priority for employees.

2005 Report on Business Survey

The 2005 Report on Business survey of the '50 Best Employers in Canada' illustrates this trend. The survey, conducted by Hewitt and Associates, underscored the importance of health and activity-promoting programs. In the 'Reasons They Stand Out' section, health-promoting initiatives were specifically mentioned in 20 out of the top 50 company profiles.

Providing employees with opportunities to promote their own health has created a buzz in the business world. The highest quality employees are actively seeking out wellness-oriented workplaces, and active living strategies are key.

Benefits Not Limited to the Corporate World

All businesses, no matter what their size, can benefit from workplace wellness initiatives.

For many small companies, it may not be feasible to establish facilities on the premises but they can make arrangements for their employees to participate in community or health club facilities. They can also use flex-time arrangements so that employees have more opportunities to participate.

Making active choices easy choices helps to improve employee health and every employer benefits if their employees are healthy and productive.