Health Handouts : Workplace Physical Activity Programs: Gaining Upper Management Support

Gaining upper management backing is essential to the success of a physical exercise program.

Whether the changes you’d like to make involve the work environment, overall policies or specific programs, successfully launching your ideas is dependent upon senior staff reinforcement.

Support from senior staff is vital for 3 reasons:

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

It’s significant to keep senior staff involved throughout a physical activity plan, but at three points you’ll need reinforcement for:

• An central concept, including a go-ahead to evaluate what workers 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.
• Analyzing the program to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the program.

Approaching Upper Management

Before going to senior staff to gain initial reinforcement for promoting physical exercise during the workday, do your homework.

• Prepare a company case clearly outlining how the company will advance by promoting physical activity during the workday.
• List the individual, social and corporate advantages of physical activity and the advantages of being active during the workday.
• Present some general ideas about what the program could 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 senior staff:

• How will this help our corporation?
• How can we motivate employees to participate?
• How much will it cost to operate this program or make this change?
• How are we going to know a year from now whether or not 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 plan. They can be very helpful when you need volunteers to lead teams in corporate physical activity challenges.