Workplace Physical Activity Programs: Gaining Senior Management Support
Posted by Corporate Wellness | Posted in Corporate Wellness | Posted on 07-07-2009
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Gaining upper management reinforcement is essential to the success of a physical exercise plan.
Whether the changes you’d like to make involve the work environment, overall policies or specific programs, successfully implementing your ideas is dependent upon management support.
Support from management is vital for 3 reasons:
• You need their support to involve employees in a workplace initiative.
• When senior staff pays attention to and supports initiative, workers also view the initiative as worthwhile.
• Senior Leadership has the authority to give work time and money to support the program.
It’s valuable to keep senior staff involved throughout a physical exercise plan, but at three points you’ll need backing for:
• An overriding concept, including a go-ahead to assess what staff members want to do within the limitations of your workplace environment.
• A detailed plan (based on the assessment above) coupled with resources to carry out the plan.
• Evaluating the initiative to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the initiative.
Approaching Senior Management
Before going to upper management to gain initial support for promoting physical exercise during work, do your homework.
• Prepare a corporation case clearly outlining how the corporation will benefit by promoting physical exercise during the workday.
• List the individual, social and corporate benefits of physical exercise and the benefits of being active during the workday.
• Present some basic ideas about what the program could include. See the Success Stories and Ideas sections on this website to highlight what other workplaces have done.
Expect questions such as the following from senior staff:
• How will this help our business?
• How can we encourage employees to take part?
• How much will it cost to run this program or make this change?
• How will we know a year from now if this was a good use of time and resources?
Ask managers about the range of activities they would support. Often managers have their own ideas they would like to see acted on to improve the workplace.
Remember to include middle managers when gaining reinforcement for your plan. They may prove to be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical exercise challenges.