Workplace Wellness
Sample workplace policies addressing:
Increasing Daily Physical Activity
Increasing Fruit
and Vegetable Consumption
Decreasing Environmental
Tobacco Smoke
-Set up walking clubs for employees to participate in before or after work, or during lunch. Encourage people to go at their own pace, including joggers and runners, so that no one feels left out. Using a buddy system is especially helpful to motivate and maintain participation.
-Organize employees into teams to participate in a pedometer challenge. Provide an incentive to the winning team. Participants should set a goal of walking 10,000 steps a day.
-Coordinate off-site events around physical activity. Consider a softball game, dancing lessons, charity walk/run, or strawberry or apple picking at a nearby farm or orchard.
-Walk during meetings rather than sitting around a conference table or in an office. You can set up walking paths within buildings or outside with different distances mapped out.
Environment
-Make physical activity more accessible and convenient for employees. Consider installing showers and changing rooms at the workplace. You can also provide safe, free storage for bikes, such as bike racks. If you have the resources, provide treadmills and exercise bikes, or free weights, exercise balls, and mats in an unused conference room or office.
-Subsidize gym memberships. Employees are more likely to get and use a gym membership if the cost is reduced or eliminated. Your company can reimburse employees for the cost, or select a health plan that offers discounted gym memberships for plan members.
-Place reminder messages and signs near stairwells, elevators, and escalators to encourage employees to take the stairs. Often a quick, eye-catching sign is all it takes to get someone to use the stairs. Research shows that signs can increase stair use by 54%. For sample motivational signs visit www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/hwi/toolkits/stairwell/motivational_signs.htm. See the box to the right for more suggestions on creating attractive stairwells.
-Allow employees to use flex time in order to fit physical activity into their workday. Let employees leave early one day a week or take an extended lunch break to be physically active (e.g., through gym time, dancing or aerobics classes, walking, or running).
-Encourage office employees to stretch at their desks or do yoga. Flexibility and balance are an important part of physical activity. Visit the Centre 4 Active Living Web site at www.centre4activeliving.ca/workplace/trr/tools.html to download free yoga and stretching at your desk videos.
-Offer classes on improving nutrition at the workplace given by a nutritionist or registered dietician. Often a nutritionist from a local hospital will speak at such classes. You can search for a registered dietician who offers workshops at www.eatright.org.
-Host a healthy potluck for lunch once a month to allow employees to socialize while eating healthy at work. Additionally, a potluck will expose people to various types of healthy foods and recipes they may not have tried otherwise. For recipes visit www.5aday.com.
-Change the way milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, and achievements are celebrated. Offering food at every meeting and celebration reinforces the tendency to eat because food is available, rather than for nutritional purposes. This can deliver mixed messages to employees who are also receiving messages about weight loss and sensible eating habits.
Environment
-Improve employees’ access to nutritious foods by working with outside food vendors, including on-site cafeterias and catering trucks, to ensure healthy options are available. Another low-cost method to improve eating habits is to replace the junk food in vending machines with healthy snacks, such as 100% fruit juice, healthy nuts, dried fruits, and low-fat popcorn. To encourage purchase of the low-fat options, consider reducing the cost on these items.
-Provide information on healthy food options for employees who don’t stay at one worksite, such as truck drivers and construction workers.
-Offer healthy alternatives such as fresh fruit and vegetables at office meetings and in the coffee or lunch room. Also, provide healthy selections for off-site company-sponsored functions. Download a healthy meeting guideline
-Organize
a farmers market or garden market at your workplace once or
twice a week. This will help to improve employees’ access to fresh
fruits and vegetables by offering quality produce conveniently. If
your organization is small, think about joining forces with nearby
companies for this purpose. A toolkit on how to plan, promote, and
implement a garden market at your workplace is available at
www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/hwi/toolkits/gardenmarket/index.htm.
-Adopt a tobacco-free policy. Consider making the entire workplace—both inside and outside—tobacco-free. Include company vehicles, rental space, and all on-site and off-site locations in the policy.
-Put your policy in writing. Include information about the health risks of tobacco use, the consequences of using tobacco in prohibited areas, and information on proven quitting aids and programs. A model policy is available at www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand_smoke/00_pdfs/appx.pdf.
-Train supervisors to implement and enforce this policy. To assist staff with implementation of the policy, refer to the toolkit available at www.goingsmokefree.org/tools/business.html.
-Inform employees 60–90 days in advance of your policy implementation date. Use e-mail, newsletters, payroll inserts, and announcements as communication channels.
-Support your workplace tobacco-free policy by posting signs indicating a tobacco-free workplace, and removing tobacco products from on-site vending machines, food services, restaurants, and retail outlets. Host meetings in smoke-free locales.
Resources for Workplace Wellness:
Nebraska Governor's Award of Excellence in Wellness
Centers for Disease Control-Healthier Worksite Initiative
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-Division of Workplace Programs
American Cancer Society-Workplace Solutions
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