How to encourage your workers to engage in high levels of physical exercise

Exercise has been linked to improved wellbeing and mental health – and, with increasing awareness on the significance of wellbeing in the workplace, it is only natural for employers to start thinking about how to engage their employees in high levels of physical exercise.

Keep reading to find out how you can support your employees in engaging in exercise more within the workplace!

Why exercise is important for employees

Exercise is important in our daily lives, and if you are a business owner, it would be a good idea to consider how to engage your employees in exercising more often. Exercise has a range of benefits including improving mental health, boosting concentration, and generally increasing productivity.

Encouraging exercise within the workplace – whether that is literally during the work day or after work – can make your employees feel better not only about themselves, but also about their lives in general, driving their motivation to work harder. So, how can you encourage this?

Flexible working hours

One way to encourage more exercise is to allow more flexibility in the times and hours that your employees work. Some employees may struggle to accommodate exercise around a 9am to 5pm work day, especially if they have other commitments such as tending to their children or other dependents. By being flexible in their hours, like allowing them to start later or finish earlier, this may enable them to actually have the time to exercise before or after work.

Fitness or exercise classes

To incorporate higher levels of exercise during work hours, however, may be to arrange fitness classes during lunch times, or after work if that is not feasible. These classes can include activities such as yoga, pilates, aerobics, to even high intensity interval training (HIIT)! In having these classes available for your employees, you can expect more employees to engage in physical exercise.

Using stairs instead of lifts

By encouraging employees to use the stairs instead of lifts in the office is a simple yet efficient way of exercising. Studies have found that those who have increased their steps from 1,000 to 10,000 a day had a lower mortality risk by 46%! So taking those extra steps on the stairs can prove to be beneficial in terms of health and wellbeing. Whilst it may seem inconvenient, it is worth broadcasting the advantages of using the stairs to your employees, as well as maybe a prize if they manage to make 10k steps in one day, to persuade them to do so.

Gym memberships and other benefits

A gym membership can be expensive depending on the area and the gym – to make things easier for you and your employees, you can offer discounts on gym memberships or even partner with local gyms, to inspire your employees to start hitting the gym now and then. You may also want to consider group critical illness cover for your employees that not only protects them, but also provides other benefits such as discounts on brands, rewards for completing health tasks, and access to support services.

With these things in mind, your business will be more successful in reaping the benefits of employees participating in more physical exercise.