Health and Wellness Leads : Workplace Physical Activity Programs: Gaining Senior Management Support

Gaining upper management reinforcement is critical to the success of a physical activity initiative.

Whether the changes you’d like to see involve the work environment, overriding policies or specific programs, successfully implementing your ideas is dependent upon management backing.

Support from upper management is vital for 3 reasons:

• You need their support to involve workers in a workplace initiative.
• When senior staff pays attention to and supports program, employees also see the program as worthwhile.
• Senior Leadership has the authority to give work time and money to support the initiative.

It’s significant to keep upper management involved throughout a physical activity initiative, but at three points you’ll need support for:

• An overriding concept, including a go-ahead to evaluate what employees want to do within the limitations of your workplace environment.
• A detailed plan (based on the assessment above) coupled with resources to carry out the plan.
• Reviewing the program to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the program.

Approaching Senior Management

Prior to addressing senior staff to gain initial support for promoting physical activity during work, do your homework.

• Prepare a organization case clearly outlining how the organization will benefit by promoting physical exercise during the workday.
• List the individual, social and corporate benefits of physical exercise and the benefits of being active during work.
• Present some general ideas about what the program might include. See the Success Stories and Ideas sections on this website to highlight what other workplaces have done.

Expect questions such as the following from management:

• How will this help our employer?
• How can we arouse employees to participate?
• How much will it cost to operate this program or bring about this change?
• How are we going to know a year from now if this was a meaningful use of time and resources?

Ask managers about the types of activities they would support. Often managers have ideas of their own they would like to see acted on to improve the workplace.

Remember to include middle managers when gaining reinforcement for your program. They can be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical activity challenges.