Healthy Lifestyle: Some Starting Points

Posted by: Alison Chisnell on: November 29, 2010

• In: Benefits | Engagement | Health | HR | Values
• 5 Comments

This morning @theHRD wrote a thought-provoking article highlighting the dangers of obesity, the effect it will have on society and issuing a call to action to busineses to better educate and support staff.  His excellent and inspiring article can be found here http://myhellisotherpeople.com/2010/11/29/a-heavy-heart/

I’m always a fan of sharing practical ideas and implementations and I wanted to start the ball rolling with highlighting some of the initiatives from my organisation to promote a healthier lifestyle.  Believe me, there lots of additional things that we could and should be doing and I can take little in the way of personal credit for most of these; however I strongly believe that it is in sharing ideas and bset practice that we collectively raise our game.

So, here goes –

1) Fruit.  For the last three years, in perhaps some of the most difficult economic circumstances, we have taken a delivery twice a week of fruit and made it freely available to staff.  Needless to say, people LOVE this and it is relatively inexpensive for the benefit it brings!

2) Benefits. As well as the usual corporate gym memberships, we also offer a healthy lifestyle subsidy of £250 against receipts every 12 months for those members of staff whose gyms are not covered in the corporate deals, or who regularly undertake an organised exercise class

3) Flexible lunch hours. Agreed individually with line managers, lunch hours can be flexed up to 2 hours to enable staff to undertake exercise during this time

4) Weightwatchers. Driven by demand, we have regularly had Weightwatchers classes on-site during lunch-times.  They are subsidised up to 50% by the company and have been really successful (I lost one and a half stone myself through it a couple of years ago!)

5) Exercise classes on site.  We have subsidised yoga classes each week, taking place during lunch hours.

6) Corporate fun runs. The chief exec of Informa dresses up as a banana once a year and challenges employees and their families to ‘Beat the Banana’

Thee are mostly just starting points and I am sure there are also many other initiatives that we could take up.  The two most powerful forces behind these ideas have been an active and committed staff board and CEOs on a divisional and corporate level who are willing to take the lead and drive these initiatives from the top.

I’d love to hear about what you do in your organisations too.