On September 1st, BeUpstanding celebrated three years of going online. In that time, we have had over 650 workplaces unlock the toolkit, with potentially more than 56,000 staff exposed to the program! We have also published over 100 blogs!
Of course, the journey to supporting workers to sit less and move more has been a lot longer than that, spanning over a decade and resulting in a substantial body of evidence into what works. The data collected through BeUpstanding is making an important contribution to this evidence base as it is examining how well the program works when it is delivered in a widely-accessible format and without direct support from researchers. Key questions we are interested in are: who is taking up the program, how are they running the program, how effective is the program, the costs of the program, and the sustainability of any changes.
We received funding from the NHMRC Partnership Project scheme to address these questions in the context of a national implementation trial. Teams who sign up to the trial must commit to completing all the evaluation elements in the program, as well as complete an additional evaluation approximately 9 months after program completion to understand the sustainability of any changes. In exchange, they receive free health coaching from one of our experts to help guide them through the program. Recruitment is still open for the trial and we are particularly seeking teams from call centres, small business and/or blue collar sectors. If this is you, please get in touch!
The trial started in June 2019 and so far we have had over 90 workplaces consent to take part with participation from across Australia and from a diverse range of industries. Preliminary effectiveness results are very promising, with reductions in self-reported workplace sitting time averaging just over 40 minutes a day. We have also gotten some great feedback on what works (lots!) as well as ideas on how to continue to improve how we support workers to sit less and move more.
It is educational, you don’t need to spend time and money on resources. You use what you already have. It is something you can easily run in any department.
A huge thank you to everyone who is helping to contribute to this world-first project. Stay tuned to see more findings from the trial!
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