Dr Ana Goode and A/Prof Genevieve Healy – the lead investigators on BeUpstanding – featured on the latest episode of the Physical Activity Researcher podcast – a Finnish initiative. They discuss the evidence that underpins BeUpstanding, the impact of COVID-19 on the program, and some simple strategies workplaces can do right away to start sitting less and moving more. Enjoy!
With staff moving to working more from home as a result of COVID-19, this can present additional challenges to running health and well-being programs within a workplace. We have had many workplaces contact us to ask whether they can still implement BeUpstanding if staff are not located in the office or onsite and the good news is YES! BeUpstanding is designed to be able to be implemented with your staff no matter where they are working from and we have had many BeUpstanding champions who have successfully taken part in the program during the last few months whilst dealing with changes to staff working locations. Two of these champions share their experience below with running the program in their workplace before and during COVID-19 imposed changes, and provide insights and tips for how they were successfully able to engage staff in the program and encourage them to sit less and move more while “at” work. Our two Champions are Sabrina from CheckUp in Brisbane and Matthew from Breakthru in Sydney. How did COVID-19 affect your workplace? Sabrina: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all CheckUP staff began working remotely from home throughout the course of the pandemic. In terms of…
This personal piece was written by Jade Lim – a 4th year psychology student at UQ as part of her placement with the BeUpstanding team As we are all practicing social distancing rules, the majority of us are working from home. While doing university remotely, I felt like I have been stuck in a continuous loop where the concept of time and space were merely a distant dream. Okay, maybe my situation during this pandemic isn’t that dramatic, but honestly I have been so unmotivated to do anything and I am sure many students feel the same way. With the transition of classes from being offline to strictly online, I find it even harder to keep up with the tutorials and lectures than when I had to go on campus. The lack of face-to-face communication and accountability allowed procrastination to occur easily. Alas, being at home calls for distractions or the endless amount of ways you can preoccupy yourself besides actually doing something productive. The fridge, TV and bed all seem to call out my name whenever an assignment deadline is closing in. Besides that, being extremely reliant on technology and the internet has made me prone to having strained…
Many of our work teams who have signed up for BeUpstanding are taking part in a national evaluation of the program. This evaluation is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) in partnership with our fantastic policy and practice partners. We have now published the protocol of this evaluation, and the free article is available online here. The key questions we are asking in the evaluation is: who is taking part in the program, how are the champions delivering the program, does the program work (and for whom does it not work), and how much does it cost. We are still recruiting for the trial and we are looking for desk teams from across Australia to sign up now. Importantly – you can run BeUpstanding even if your team is working from home, or has a mix of home and office. Indeed, BeUpstanding might be the perfect program to help your team stay connected while also supporting their health and wellbeing.
This personal post is written by guest blogger Meg Grealy – who speaks of her experience of returning from overseas and into quarantine. Had you asked me in January, or even the beginning of March, what my April days were looking like they would sound achievable, nothing too extreme, just the routine of a twenty-something who had just moved to the UK on a working visa. I would have said a morning run (so I could make it across the finish line of the 10k I’d signed up to run on May 3rd) a 3-day work week, and an exploratory beer in various pubs across my new city. In hindsight, the only thing I managed to get right is the daily run (although it’s purpose is now to harness endorphins for the day). And yet the daily run is maybe the only thing that has kept me sane and allowed me to stay present in a period where everything is confusing. It seems the only effective strategy of taking control is to muddle through conflicting emotions and anxiety-inducing news cycles. As we started this year during a bushfire crisis, I feel as if there has been a delay in…
One of the core principals of BeUpstanding is to build a supportive team culture that supports more movement, more often. But, how do you do that when members of your team are working from home or offsite? At team BeUpstanding we are working on a bunch of new resources to help support you and your team to sit less and move more – no matter where you are working from. While you wait for them, here are some quick suggestions on how you can BeUpstanding as a team while working remotely: Stand up and stretch during teleconferences: have this part of your remote etiquette that you support movement during meetings! Build in team reminders or prompts to stand and move through shared calendars and project management software Set team strength goals where everyone’s light resistance exercises (like calf raises, wall push ups) contribute to the daily team goal Send email reminders to take regular movement breaks like filling up your water glass
BeUpstanding is a big project. I mean really big. Besides the main program of research and the associated NHMRC Implementation Trial, we have a range of students working on projects in the background, helping to expand the evidence base around what works to help people stand up, sit less and move more. I’m Jason, one of the honours students involved in the BeUpstanding program. If you are an avid reader of our blog then you have met me before here. Today we are going dive into my research project which is focused on champion and workplace characteristics, and what these mean for successful implementation of BeUpstanding in your workplace. One of the key design features of BeUpstanding is the use of a ‘workplace champion’ in delivering the program workplace. Workplace champions are individuals who nominated themselves (or have been nominated by their employer) that have the interest and the capacity to implement BeUpstanding in their workplace. Champions have been shown to be economical, effective at disseminating information and provide an important role model for staff. But who makes a successful champion? A range of studies have identified some skills and attributes that contribute to being a successful workplace champion. These include…
A critical part of the BeUpstanding program is choosing three strategies as a team to BeUpstanding. Some of our previous blog posts have provided suggestions from the evidence for strategies to sit less and gain momentum for change. But what have our BeUpstanding teams been doing? Below are some of the more common strategies teams have chosen to date. Encourage workers to leave their desks during breaks Move bins, printers/scanners and mailboxes to a central location Have standing meetings Stand and move around when taking a phone call Provide information / maps / distances on convenient walks in and around the office Put height-adjustable desks in a standing position when leaving the desk Put stand and stretch breaks into meeting agendas Other strategies we have heard of teams adopting and think are great are: Stand up and shake it off. This was in a work environment where team members regularly experienced difficult phone calls. By standing up and shaking it off, it not only allowed the individual to experience the benefits of breaking up their sitting time, but also provided a non-verbal signal to other team members to check in. KPI bingo: Here, the team picked a key word (e.g., KPI)…
On the 1st of August, lead investigator for BeUpstanding – Associate Professor Genevieve Healy – spoke at a Commonwealth Safety Managers Forum event in Canberra to promote the BeUpstanding program and the exciting new updates that are now available. If you haven’t seen any of the updates, make sure you head over to BeUpstanding to check them out. We are currently recruiting for our national evaluation trial of the program, with participating champions provided with free health coaching from our expert BeUpstanding team.
WayAhead Workplaces recently featured us on their website! If you want to learn a little more about the UQ BeUpstanding team, click here, or read on below. NAME The BeUpstanding™ Team A/Prof Genevieve Healy, Dr Ana Goode, Jennifer Burzic JOB TITLES Genevieve: Principal Research Fellow Ana: Research Fellow Jen: Research Assistant ORGANISATION The University of Queensland, School of Public Health, Cancer Prevention Research Centre WHAT ARE YOU/YOUR ORGANISATION CURRENTLY FOCUSSING ON IN TERMS OF WORKPLACE HEALTH AND WELLBEING? Here at The University of Queensland, we have been focussing on enhancing our BeUpstanding™ program (www.beupstanding.com.au): a free, evidence-informed online program designed to support workplace champions make sitting less and moving more the new norm in their work team. We received NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council) funding for a national implementation trial and have been working closely with our amazing partners; Comcare, Safe Work Australia, Office of Industrial Relations QLD, VicHealth and Cancer Council WA/ Healthy Workplaces WA building towards a national launch in 2019. WHAT ASPECT OF WORKPLACE HEALTH AND WELLBEING DOES YOUR ORGANISATION DO WELL IN? We are very lucky that The University of Queensland offers a lot of great health and wellbeing programs including the UQ wellness program, Bupa services…
