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Can we transfer what works in the office to the home work environment?

Latest evidence

COVID-19 has brought about massive shifts in working practices resulting in many employees now working at home/remote working at least some days of the week. While there have now been a number of studies addressing prolonged sitting at the workplace, how these strategies translate to the home work environment is less well understood.  An article titled ‘What works to reduce sedentary behavior in the office, and could these intervention components transfer to the home working environment?: A rapid review and transferability appraisal’ was recently published in Frontiers in sports and active living to help understand this issue. The aim of the review was to build on existing evidence to identify what works to reduce sedentary behaviour in an office environment, and consider whether these could be transferrable to support employees working at home. The results of a systematic search of databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, CINHAL, and SportDiscus from 10 August 2017 to 6 September 2021 were added to the references included in a 2018 Cochrane review of office based sedentary interventions. Informed by the Behavior Change Wheel, the most commonly used intervention functions and behavior change techniques were identified from the extracted data. Finally, a sample of common intervention strategies were…

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How do BeUpstanding teams choose their top 3 strategies to stand up, sit less and move more?

BeUpstanding Stories

One of the key components of the BeUpstanding program is to hold a staff consultation workshop with all team members. The aim of the workshop is to provide information about the program to staff, give them the opportunity to discuss potential ways in which they can stand up, sit less, and move more at work, and the collectively select three top strategies to implement as a team during the 8-week program and beyond. Ideally the workshop is held in-person, however, we know that COVID and other factors have affected how and where people work.  As a result, an in-person staff workshop was not always possible for the teams taking part in our national trial of BeUpstanding and teams conducted this consultation and gained staff input in various ways. As part of our research, we are interested in finding out how staff were engaged in decision making around potential BeUpstanding strategies. This data was obtained via the program completion survey that workplace BeUpstanding champions completed upon finishing the 8-week implementation phase of the program. In the survey, champions were asked how they gained input from staff on how they wanted to BeUpstanding (in addition to or instead of the staff workshop),…

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Champion Insights – Barriers to engaging management and staff in BeUpstanding

BeUpstanding Stories

Implementing a well-being program in a workplace can come with some challenges, one of which can be engaging staff and/or management in the program. As part of the national trial of BeUpstanding we are interested in learning what some of the barriers were in relation to engaging staff and management in the BeUpstanding program, a workplace champion led program aimed at supporting staff to sit less and move more in the workplace. As part of the program completion survey that BeUpstanding Champions complete upon finishing the 8-week implementation phase of the BeUpstanding program, they are asked the following question: “Tell us about any barriers to engaging management or staff in the BeUpstanding program that you have noticed”. The changes associated with working from home due to COVID-19, namely the lack of visibility and the lack of equipment, were identified as common barriers. It’s hard to get everyone on board.  Working from home made it more challenging – less visibility. Some staff were working from home during the program where they didn’t have sit to stand desks and fellow workers to encourage more movement. A lack of time/being too busy, and only having support from some levels of management, were also…

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Wherever you work, a safe and healthy workplace is for everyone

BeUpstanding Stories

By now we all know that the COVID-19 global pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in how and where people are working. Helping people to sit less and move more at work has been a key priority in recent years, with much of the focus being on the office workplace. The phrases ‘pre-COVID’ and ‘COVID-normal’ are thrown around a fair bit these days, but perhaps they are a fitting way to describe the shift that many desk-based workers have experienced. Even for those who have now returned to their workplaces, the ‘pre-COVID’ work environment is likely to be quite different to the ‘COVID-normal’ workplaces many are now working in. Other workers have seen a complete (perhaps long term) shift to working remotely, or a mix of both. What remains, however, is the need to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for everyone. We do not yet know the long-term impacts of these current changes to our work environment, but we do know that there is a clear need to continue to help workers to be able to sit less and move more, regardless of where they are working. The term ‘desk-based workers’ rather than ‘office workers’ is a term we often…

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Tips from Champions for running a health and wellbeing program with a remote working team

BeUpstanding Stories

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…

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Tips for running Health and Well-being programs with a remote working team

Key resources

COVID-19 has upended business operations on a global scale and has forced many workplaces to rapidly transition to staff working remotely. However, with organisations adapting to change and staff experiencing the benefits of working from home, it may be the case that the shift towards telecommuting is here to stay. While the focus of organisations has been on ensuring the safety of their employees at this time, employee well-being is also becoming an area of greater significance. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), well-being is “the ability for individuals to address normal stresses, work productively, and realize their highest potential.” A wellness program should be designed to support the overall health and well-being of employees, while aiming to meet the specific needs of each individual employee. If you and your team are new to working from home, navigating this change on its own can be challenging. While your organisation may already have a wellness program or initiative in place, being able to adapt the program and make it relevant and engaging for staff working remotely can come with its own set of challenges. So how do you set you and your team up for success when it comes…

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3 Tips from a Health Coach to Staying Active and Healthy when Working From Home

Bite size facts

One of the biggest problems from working at home can be inactivity. There’s no walking to get a cup of coffee, visiting a nearby colleague, taking the stairs to the bathroom or those incidental types of activity that come from being in a workplace with people and areas spread out. Everything is within easy reach at home. Couple that with a busy workload and this can mean sitting for as long as possible until the task is done. Suddenly hours have gone by and we’re still sitting hunched over the desk. Remaining in one posture for hours at a time can affect the muscles in your back, neck, hip flexors, hamstrings and calves. Excessive sitting can affect your metabolism, increase blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Staying active when working from home may seem easy. Without the daily commute and perhaps having more flexibility in your working hours, surely being at home affords you more time to spend on exercise? Whilst this may be true in theory, we may quickly fall into routines that do not prioritise healthy activity and the boundaries between work and personal life become blurred. The best…

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Hack for a home office – article from ABC online 31st March

News and Events

This article was posted by the ABC online on the 31st March, 2020. You can find the original article here.  Working from home during coronavirus shutdown? These hacks may help keep ease the pain of your home office ABC Health & Wellbeing – By Genelle Weule Working from home can be physically and psychologically challenging. (Getty Images: Planet Flem) Kitchen benchtops and dining room tables around Australia have become workspaces as office workers have been advised to work from home in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Where the opportunity to work from home in your PJs might have once seemed like a treat, the rapid shift to working from home — if that is even an option for you — is challenging. Suddenly, you may find yourself working in the same space as your family, bent over a laptop instead of sitting or standing at a dedicated workstation with ergonomic equipment. The combination of long hours on a laptop on the kitchen table can be both physically and psychologically stressful over the long haul. “It’s worth investing some time thinking about how to make this work to protect your physical and mental wellbeing,” said Jodi Oakman, who leads the Centre for Ergonomics and Human…

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Some quick ideas for your team to BeUpstanding when working remotely

BeUpstanding Stories

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

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