Is your team stuck in a rut and short of creative juices? Have you considered utilising exercise as a tool to inject fresh energy into your staff?
Wendy Suzuki thinks you should
What’s the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today? Exercise! says neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. Get inspired to go to the gym!
In this video, Suzuki discusses the science of how working out boosts your mood and memory — and protects your brain against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
How much time are your team spending behind their screens?
Research released in 2018 indicted that staff members were spending approximately 1700 per year behind their computer screens. In other words, 6.5 hours in an 8 hour working day!
Fast-forward after the COVID-19 lockdowns where Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other online conferencing systems became the new normal and it wasn’t unusual for people to be spending their entire working day flitting from online meeting to online meeting and feeling guilty if every minute of their day was not occupied.
As pointed out in this post, Microsoft themselves released research saying that people were spending too much time in online meetings and it was negatively impacting their work performance.
Brain-changing exercise is not just about gym – it can be part of your culture!
As a Human Resource (HR) manager or business owner, you can’t simply “decree” that your team are going to start exercising more because it’s going to make them more productive.
Each team is going to be different and you are going to be engaging with a variety of different personalities, health statuses and the like.
Rather you need to be engaging with the team and showing them that you can accommodate exercise in all sorts of different forms.
In this guest post, Sarah Rice who is the Chief People officer for Skynamo makes the point that there is also a social element involved in getting your team to work together and build meaningful relations.
She wrote:
“This is because remote work can increase the possibility for co-workers to feel disconnected and alienated from the company and fellow colleagues. Employees can forget that they’re part of a team and they lose their sense of belonging. This is where culture comes in as it can maintain connection even while there is a physical separation. As such, hybrid has an advantage over purely remote working because it gives teams the best of both worlds. But with this shift, it is important for companies to ascertain how to cultivate culture in this new setting.“
It takes time to change mentality
When you are an HR manager who is trying to get teams to buy-in to your Corporate Wellness initiatives, you might find yourself encountering team members who say “I’m too busy”
It’s important you break this cycle and get your senior team members to talk to the science behind doing exercise and not sitting behind a screen the whole time.
An investment in exercise can be an investment in a world-beating team
If you as an HR professional believe that your staff are your greatest asset, then allow them to invest in regular exercises as part of your Corporate Wellness program.
This could take the form of structured exercises including high-impact workouts like CResults Digital Boxing [which is becoming very popular] or it could be something simple like organising a walk or a hike that gets your team out from behind their desks.
If you need assistance with developing staff activations or your team or developing a Corporate Wellness program, then please do not hesitate to contact us.
If your business has had some success stories, feel free to share them in the comments section below!
Here’s to a healthy and happy workforce!
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