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Six Strategies For Sitting Less

Six Strategies for Sitting Less Scratching your head on how your team can BeUpstanding? A recent study by Hadgraft and colleagues and published in the journal BMC Public Health, explored office workers attitudes around reducing workplace sitting. They also sought out workers opinions on a variety of strategies aimed at reducing occupational sitting, which were commonly identified from previous workplace interventions, and their perceived barriers to achieving this in the workplace.  A number of strategies were viewed as acceptable and likely to be adopted by workers with some of the strategies addressing multiple influences on sitting and catering to a range of different jobs and preferences.  Why not give some of the strategies a try in your workplace! Make use of standing meeting. Sick of sitting through endless meetings? Look to change it up by changing your posture. A standing meeting can be used for a quick check in with the team, while putting stand and stretch breaks into the agenda can help your team reset and refocus. Why not step it up by having a walking meeting for those one-on-one catch ups! Communicating face-to-face. Whenever there’s a short message to be conveyed to a co-worker, employees can tell the…

What Makes A Good Champion?

Are you interested in becoming a workplace champion? Maybe you are looking for someone to assume this role in your workplace but you are unsure where to start. You might ask yourself what makes a ‘good’ workplace champion? Previous research suggests that the most effective workplace champions are those who have a genuine passion for health and wellbeing and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to inspire others towards a healthier lifestyle (Healy et al., 2018). They must also be committed to making long-term positive health changes in their workplace and display a good relationship with their peers. It could be someone that has, or is eager to gain, some experience in managing similar projects. Health and safety representatives are often chosen for this position because it coincides with their goals, namely to create a safer, healthier workplace. However, we must also consider the individual’s capacity to adopt this role. Do they have the time and resources to engage fully with the program within the confines of their own job? Or will it fall into their periphery? These are just a few of the things that must be considered before electing a workplace champion. More general personality traits like outgoingness and…

3 BeUpstanding™ strategies to gain momentum for change

In late 2015 we ran a pilot study to test and refine the BeUpstanding toolkit that you see today. Along the way, we heard some really inspiring stories from people who created their own strategies to BeUpstanding™ in their workplace — some that were simple, some that were quirky, some that were straight up genius! Here are  3 strategies for a little inspiration. The 3 o’clock Mexican Wave One workplace we partnered with adopted a 3 PM office-wide Mexican wave to get their staff on their feet. It’s something everyone takes part in, and never fails to crack some smiles! The stairs of gratitude Our friends at a busy studio in Melbourne reside on the sixth floor of their office building. They instated a challenge to walk the stairs once a day, and on each floor people gave thanks for something they were grateful for in their life. The shake it off One workplace that dealt with a lot of customer complaints encouraged an office-wide policy to stand up and shake it off after every phone call. Staff reported a lift in their feelings of resilience and overall stress.

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