Wellness Library : Workplace Physical Activity Programs: Gaining Senior Management Support
Posted in Corporate Wellness, Wellness Library | By admin | Tags: Corporate Wellness, health, medical, Wellness Library
Gaining upper management support is vital to the success of a physical exercise program.
Whether the changes you’d like to see involve the work environment, overall policies or specific programs, successfully implementing your ideas is dependent upon upper management backing.
Support from senior staff is critical for three reasons:
• You need their agreement to involve staff members in a workplace plan.
• When management pays attention to and supports plan, workers also view the plan as worthwhile.
• Senior Management has the authority to give work time and money to support the plan.
It’s significant to keep senior staff involved throughout a physical exercise program, but at three points you’ll need backing for:
• An overriding concept, including a go-ahead to assess what workers 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.
• Reviewing the program to better it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the program.
Approaching Senior Leadership
Prior to going to upper management to gain initial reinforcement for promoting physical exercise during work, do your homework.
• Prepare a organization case clearly outlining how the organization will profit by promoting physical activity during work.
• List the individual, social and corporate benefits of physical exercise and the benefits of being active during work.
• Present some cursory 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 management:
• How will this help our corporation?
• How can we arouse staff members to participate?
• How much will it cost to operate this program or make this change?
• How are we going to know a year from now whether or not this was a good use of time and resources?
Ask managers about the sorts of activities they would support. Often managers have ideas of their own they would like to see acted on to better the workplace.
Remember to include middle managers when gaining support for your program. They may prove to be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical activity challenges.
Tags: Corporate Wellness, health, medical, Wellness Library