Physical activity at the workplace: who, what, where?

Sufficient physical activity is increasingly accepted as a strategy to promote well-being at work. But what are companies actually doing?

Research theme: Healthy exercise

Field of interest: Education; Health and Care; Business and Management

Duration: 9/01/2020 - 31/12/2020

Added value of physical activity for employees

Good physical, mental and social health ensures greater well-being. Sufficient health enhancing physical activity (HEPA) is one of the important components of a healthy lifestyle. This is important for everyone personally.

But also in organisations and companies, there is an increasing awareness of the added value of healthy employees and the role that sufficient HEPA plays:

The shortage on the labour market, makes employee health even more important;
A healthy employee drops out less and is more productive;
The "war on talent" also means that a sound health policy is becoming increasingly important to attract new employees.

What exercise interventions are there in the workplace?

There is a lot of scientific evidence on the impact, effect and how to use exercise interventions at work. These insights do not always trickle down to organisations. However, this does not prevent them from doing something. Even if this is not always easy for them. Especially SMEs face a big challenge here.

Online, you can find all kinds of examples of companies coming forward with such initiatives (e.g.: participation in sports events, installation of padel court, etc.). But what do organisations and companies actually do and the real world?

This research attempts to answer this question. A scoping review within the grey literature (systematic Google search) was used to search for what initiatives are currently being done effectively in the real world. This Google search was done in six different languages (Catalan, English, Finnish, French, Spanish and Dutch) for all possible initiatives communicated in the grey literature during the period 2015-2020.

This resulted in a dataset of 713 "real life" workplace exercise interventions. These can be categorised into five main groups:

active work and life
exercise and fitness programmes
management and leadership
communication and dissemination
facilities

Which exercise interventions are feasible for an SME?

By mapping this out, there is a clearer picture of what organisations are real world. This can serve as a starting point to better understand viable options for small- to medium-sized enterprises in terms of workplace exercise interventions.

Research realisations and publications

This research project resulted in a scientific publication and a toolbox for the WHO "Promotion of health-enhancing physical activity in small- to medium-sized enterprises. A toolkit" to be published in autumn 2023.