Health Wellness ProgramHealth and Wellness Programs and Wellness Program Consulting

• Make sure that your building’s stairwells are clean, attractive and safe, and post signs stimulating staff to use the stairs.

• Start a wellness newsletter or intranet.

• Promote the Activity Tracker and encourage personnel to track their physical activity every week.

• be creative, and make the most of the workspace you have. for example, mark off a safe walking path inside or around the building.

You could also set up a training circuit, highlighting features of the worksite such as stairs.

• Make available physical activity opportunities at different times to accommodate night-, shift-, and part-time staff members.

• For staff members in remote or satellite offices, offer equal access to key wellness programs via the intranet. Adapt challenges to suit their environment and take advantage of local facilities and resources.

• Make exercise available to staff with special needs. Adapt information and activities for any staff who are visually impaired or physically disabled in addition to for individuals  who speak English as a second language.

• Educate workers about physical activity using information from reputable sources like the Alberta Center for Active Living.

• Make available facilities that invite on-site exercise. Possibilities include bike racks, an exercise room, change rooms with lockers and showers, and safe and attractive grounds for walking.

• Hold walking meetings.

• Be sure to encourage workers to walk to colleagues’ offices instead of e-mailing or phoning.

• Make sure to set up a stretching room. This low-cost initiative requires only a room, stretching mats, stability balls and medicine balls. Put up posters that show stretches and exercises.

• Give incentives like shoe bags, ball caps, T-shirts or water bottles to reward staff participation.

• Loan out pedometers for three months, so that staff members can find out how many steps they ordinarily take and how much activity they need to add to get basic health benefits.

• Make space for staff to plant and maintain a flowerbed or garden at the workplace. Use any resulting produce for meetings and potluck lunches or donate it to charity.

• Plan a workplace health fair.

• Hire a qualified fitness expert to design and manage an onsite exercise facility.

• Supply personnel with active wear that shows off the corporation logo.