This blog was written by Bethany Garrity. Meet our blogging fitness specialists at the NIFS website.
Are your employees spending too many hours per week at work and not enough hours being active through the week because it's hard to find time to exercise? If your answer is a resounding yes, consider using their "too much time at work" to your employee health advantage.
It's well known that adults in the U.S. do not get enough exercise daily. But that’s even more likely to be the case for adults with children at home under 18. Throw a 50+-hour-per-week job into the mix and getting regular exercise can seem all but impossible.
You can't do much to change the dizzying schedule of working parents, but you can make it easier for your captive audience (aka your employees) to choose to be an active audience when they are at work.
Building an onsite corporate fitness center might be the way to go. But if that seems expensive, intense, or impossible, think about offering a corporate fitness program that includes group classes (such as these offered by NIFS), walking groups, or incentives for running or cycling commuters. Start an "exercise with the execs" program where employees can join the C-suite folks for a walk and a chance to chat about how the company is doing, where it’s headed, and so on.
With the right mix of creativity, hard work, and resource support, you can turn your captive audience into an active audience--and help improve their work-life balance.