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BeUpstanding: Who has taken part so far?

BeUpstanding Stories

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…

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How are teams choosing to BeUpstanding?

BeUpstanding Stories

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)…

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BeUpstanding features in Canberra

BeUpstanding Stories

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.

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Left to right: Jennifer Burzic, A/Prof Genevieve Healy, Dr Ana Goode

A little about the UQ BeUpstanding™ team!

BeUpstanding Stories

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…

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Discovery Interviews: What are they, why we are doing them, and what have we found?

Latest evidence

The BeUpstanding™ team have recently been out and about talking to and interviewing champions, potential champions, teams, and workplaces about their experience of taking part in BeUpstanding. Today we are going to take a look at what discovery interviews are, what they are used for, and why we are doing them. Most importantly we are going to share some of the interesting things that we found. What are discovery interviews? Discovery interviews have one main purpose – and that is for the researcher (or product development team) to understand how the end user is actually using a product. In our case, they are giving us insights into why organisations and champions are taking up BeUpstanding, or why they might consider taking it up, as well as the barriers and facilitators to success. In this round of interviews, our discovery process has involved in-depth interviews with government departments, mining, and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, as well as on-site observations of work teams, both before and after putting BeUpstanding into practice. Over the past several months we have conducted numerous interviews. We deliberately chose teams with varying levels of engagement with BeUpstanding. We interviewed teams that were actively using the…

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

Latest evidence

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!

Press

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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