Workplace Active Certificate

Importance of employee health and well-being for companies

Good health is what we all want and often wish each other at New Year. Good health is more than the absence of disease. It is also a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. When that is the case, you are at your best:

• you function as you should;
• you have energy;
• you keep balance, ...

Certification programme exercise and sport for companies

Employers who care about the well-being of their staff want the same for them. We often see good initiatives and examples. But what is really important to have a sustainable and effective health policy in the workplace?

The Erasmus+ project "Workplace Active Certification" (WAC) aims to: reward and encourage companies that commit to the well-being of their employees through exercise and sport. We do this through the creation of a sustainable, credible and reliable certification programme for the workplace setting. It is thus a European-level label concerning "physical activity" or physical activity at work.

Literature on thresholds and opportunities

To get to that, the scientific and grey literature was analysed. Here, it became clear what works, where there are thresholds and where there are opportunities. A number of good practices and areas of concern also emerged.

Companies about moving at work

In addition, 28 companies from 7 different European countries were surveyed about their initiatives, experiences, successes and difficulties. These companies operate in a multitude of sectors, from banking to heavy industry and from public services to IT companies.

Criteria certification programme

Based on these findings (literature and end-user interviews), a first draft of the certification criteria was drawn up.

This first draft was submitted to a team of experts (researchers, unions, company doctors, HR professionals, etc.). This way, the criteria were tested several times. 

In a final phase, 25 pioneering companies are working together to test the criteria to determine their feasibility.