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What is the link between Stress, Team Cohesion, and BeUpstanding™?

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At team BeUpstanding™, we are not only interested in how our program impacts on raising awareness, building culture, and changing behaviour to support workers to stand up, sit less, and move more, but also on its broader impact on health, productivity and wellbeing. The following blog is written by Jemieca Loeffler who undertook her honours with the BeUpstanding™ team here at the University of Queensland. She worked with some of our amazing champions and teams taking part in BeUpstanding™ to find out in a bit more detail if there was any impact of the program on occupational stress and group cohesion. What she found was that the more stressed employees were and the more cohesive they felt with their team, the less time they spent sitting at work and the more likely they were to engage in BeUpstanding™.  Sound interesting? Read below to find out more! Some background info As we know, prolonged sitting can be detrimental for our health, and many of us fall victim to this public health concern through our jobs. A study by Thorpe et al. showed that call centre workers, in particular, are at highest risk of sedentariness, spending up to 90% of their work day sitting,…

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VicHealth Award Nomination!

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We are super excited to announce that BeUpstanding™ has been nominated as a finalist in the VicHealth Awards, under the category Research into Action. It feels great to be recognised for our work of translating the Stand Up Australia research program into BeUpstanding™. You can check out our spotlight here. We would like to thank our wonderful partners and collaborators: VicHealth, Comcare, Safe Work Australia, Queensland Office of Industrial Relations, Healthier Workplacce WA / Heart Foundation WA (now transitioned to Cancer Council WA), The University of Queensland, Deakin University, Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute, and Curtin University. And of course, a huge thank you to all of the champions and work teams who have taken up BeUpstanding™ in their workplace. We continue to work hard to provide the best resources to help you stand up, sit less, and move more throughout your day. Congratulations to all of the other finalists! There are some incredible teams, so go check them out on the VicHealth Awards page, and make sure you stay tuned…winners will be announced December 5th, 2018.

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UPDATE: Who’s Come On Board? (Sep.-Dec. ’17)

Toolkit stats

Update: September – December, 2017  We are back with some exciting updates for you on the BeUpstanding™ Champion Toolkit! The soft launch of the toolkit in September 2017 was well-received with 45+ champions signing up in the first 3 months – a fantastic result. These champions have taken the initiative to turn their workplaces into healthier work-spaces for their colleagues and themselves, with the key message of ‘sitting less and moving more’. Let’s look at some interesting facts and figures about our champions who have come on-board. The response from Queensland and Western Australia has been outstanding with 30% and 27% representation by champions respectively. New South Wales is not far behind. We are pleased with champion representation from the range of states and territories across Australia. With 70% of champions being female, women have ‘up stood’ men in the gender demographic (for now). Our youngest champion is only 21, whilst our eldest champion is 60 years of age – proving that healthier lifestyle choices can be made at any age. The public and private sectors are head-to-head in the drive to BeUpstanding™, with nearly 50% of our champions representing either sector. Moreover, it is not just metropolitan workplaces that are coming…

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BeUpstanding™ is now live!

BeUpstanding Stories

After nearly two years of behind the scenes work, and building on more than a decade of evidence, the team at BeUpstanding™ are very excited to let you know that the toolkit is now live and recruiting! In this “soft launch” phase of the toolkit, we are really keen to hear from YOU – the champions, workers, and organisations about your experiences with the toolkit. This will help us to continue to improve the toolkit and resources for other champions and their teams. So – sign up now! and don’t forget to also follow and like our Instagram.

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Top tips from Champions for Champions

BeUpstanding Stories

We asked Workplace Champions for their top tips to running BeUpstanding™ and here’s what they said…  Don’t do it alone! Make sure you have a support network of other keen staff members who can step in to help you, especially during busy periods or when you are away. Be creative and try to have fun. Staff respond well to innovative and fun ideas. The more fun you have running the program, the more likely staff will follow your lead. Don’t be disheartened by nay-sayers. There’s usually at least one or two general and/ or management level staff who are skeptical or unwilling to make changes. Try not to let their voices be the loudest in the crowd.  Print out the program overview to help you stay on track and tick off the steps as you go so that you remember where you are up to. Regular reminders in your calendar prompting you to go back into the Toolkit can help make sure you don’t lose momentum. Think about regular ‘re-launches’ and ways to keep people motivated (like themed morning teas, quizzes, competitions and challenges). Perseverance is the key…and you’ll slowly start seeing that standing up, sitting less and moving more…

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