Physical activity in workplace

61% of men and 71% of women in the UK do not meet physical activity guidelines. Some workplaces have tried to encourage physical activity at work to keep employees happy and healthy, but it has proved difficult to interest employees and to keep them involved. A new approach could be to provide opportunities for physical activity during paid working hours. However, this has not been tried in the UK, only in the US and Scandinavia. So we know virtually nothing about employees’ and employers’ attitudes towards such an idea. Without this important information, and some knowledge of the potential barriers associated with it, it would be difficult to proceed.
This exploratory project would investigate attitudes relevant to such interventions in the workplace. We would do this by getting the views of people within the organisations (employees, line managers, senior managers and supervisors, HR departments) and to explore their thoughts on how such an approach might work.

61% of men and 71% of women in the UK do not meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. Workplaces offer potentially large target populations for much-needed public health interventions aimed at increasing levels of PA, and such interventions have the further potential benefit of reducing long spells of sitting among employees at work. Although targeted group-based walking and exercise interventions have had moderate success in many settings, there are often significant problems with recruitment and retention. One innovative solution in the workplace is to provide opportunities for PA during paid working hours. Some studies have explored this approach in Scandinavia and the US (Conn et al, Am J Prev Med 2009), but no definitive trials have been conducted and none in the UK. At present, employees’ and employers’ views and attitudes towards PA in paid working hours are unknown. Without this fundamental information, and an idea of the potential barriers associated with it, we cannot proceed with intervention development. We therefore propose an early phase study to explore the perceived acceptability of such an incentivised intervention at an employee and organisational level, and to identify barriers that would need to be addressed before such an intervention could be piloted in the UK. We have identified two large workplaces in Forth Valley, Scotland, and would use qualitative methods (focus groups and interviews) to explore the views of stakeholders (employees, line managers and senior managers) on the delivery of opportunities for PA during paid working hours and the kinds of models/sessions they are most likely to engage with, and are implementable. This formative work would be underpinned by a social marketing framework. We would also hold a participative workshop for stakeholders within each workplace to generate ideas for overcoming perceived barriers and logistical difficulties in intervention implementation.