People engage in three movement-related behaviours each day: sitting, moving, and sleeping. Two of these, sitting and moving, are important to the workplace and they’re interrelated – if you are sitting, you are likely not moving; and if you are moving, you are likely not sitting still.

Any increase in physical activity is good for our health.⁴ As little as 10 minutes per day of light physical activity is beneficial with more activity producing greater benefit.

People spend approximately 60-70% of their waking hours being sedentary.¹ The average person reports sitting approximately 6.4 hours per day, with desk-based people sometimes sitting for up to 82% of their working hours.² As such, the workplace is identified as a high-risk site for excessive sitting time in many western countries, including Australia. As full-time employees tend to spend an average of 37–40 hours per week working, workplaces are an ideal setting to promote a healthy culture to encourage their employees to move more and sit less.³

Even if your employees are active before and after work, they should still be encouraged to move more and sit less while at work to significantly improve their health and wellbeing.

Physical activity will:

• reduce the risk of disease, such as Type 2 diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease
• improve mental health and sleep
• promote greater physical fitness and health
• strengthen bones and muscles.⁵

The benefits of physical activity are important for everyone in the workplace, but they will be especially important for older workers as the retirement age in Australia continues to rise.

Replacing sitting with moving

Reallocating sedentary time to physical activity is associated with favourable health outcomes.⁶ Workplace physical activity interventions have been shown to significantly increase daily step counts and employee fitness levels.⁷ Interventions work best when everyone works together to make them a part of day-to-day business.⁸ This can be done by changing the physical environment and organisational structure to actively reduce sitting time and encourage movement. In addition to the above health improvements, workplaces also experienced:

• reduced absenteeism
• improved cognitive function, leading
• to a greater ability to concentrate
• enhanced work performance and productivity.⁹

Barriers to moving more

Managers have identified the organisational barriers that limit physical activity, and they include health and safety regulations, costs and competing concerns. For example, productivity targets may take priority or there may be a cost involved with modifying the work environment. Employees reported individual barriers to movement such as difficulty finding time or the impact of geography on active transportation options. They also reported that manager support and the demands of their work played a significant role.¹⁰

Workplaces can encourage people to add movement into their daily routine, by creating a workplace culture where physical activity is valued and encouraged. Building opportunities for staff to add movement into their working day can lead to happier and healthier employees.

Actions you can take to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary work

Healthy vision — create polices, practice and a workplace culture that supports movement

• Create a workplace short activity break policy that encourages people to break-up prolonged periods of sitting with standing or moving. Start with one 10–15 minute movement break every workday with, and led by, other employees.
• Consider policies that explicitly allow people to include walking meetings as part of their workday. Walking meetings can be especially useful when brainstorming ideas or creative approaches.
• Create opportunities for flexitime or time-in-lieu for physical activity and embed this within relevant WHS policies.
• Allow people to be physically active while on the clock, even for as little as 10-15 minutes.
• Support and account for regular stretch or walk breaks in delivery and transport schedules.
• Create a recurring agenda item addressing sedentary practices at staff-related meetings.

Healthy place — create a workplace environment conducive to movement

• Have shared and centralised facilities, including break rooms, bathrooms, printers, and trash bins, to encourage movement to
  use these facilities.
• Display prominent signs that encourage people to use the stairs and talk about stair use via internal communication channels.
• Create inviting and friendly stairwells by painting the walls a calming colour, adding artwork, or installing motivational signs/slogans.
• Purchase height adjustable desks and high meeting tables for standing options.
• Provide access to showers, change rooms, and lockers or alternatives nearby if these facilities aren’t available onsite.
• Create secure and easily accessible bike storage to encourage cycling to and from work.
• Create a dedicated exercise space. Provide exercise equipment, a TV with internet access, or a stretching space.
• Audit the workplace environment and practices for sedentary behaviours to gauge areas for improvement.

Healthy people — create programs that encourage movement

• Organise and take part in a company-wide physical activity challenge, through the 10,000 steps program.
• Sign up to the Be Upstanding program to encourage employees to monitor sitting time and prompt standing.
• Subsidise the purchase of self-monitoring devices (e.g. activity trackers/pedometers), bicycles for commuting to work, or public transit fares. Consider negotiating a corporate rate for a local gym.
• Assign a workplace champion to provide information about the benefits of regular movement via communication channels such
  as newsletters, CEO memos, noticeboards and lunchrooms.
• Provide supervised or partially supervised physical activity programs onsite or at nearby fitness facilities.
• Hold educational workshops on the benefits of breaking up sitting time and adding movement into the workday.
• Encourage management to role model movement activities, such as active breaks, standing to break up sitting time, and walking meetings.
• Promote and provide work time to access the free Better Health Coaching Service.
• Promote regular walking such as lunchtime walking trails and group team challenges.
• Hold cycling information sessions about defensive cycling strategies, cycling road rules or bicycle maintenance to encourage cycling to work.

More resources to help you take action

Physical activity resource referral guide (DOCX, 479.7 KB)

SA Health has great information and tips on ways to be active. Search for 'be active'.

Safe Work Australia has information on sedentary work as an emergent work health and safety issue.

¹ A Biswas, PI Oh, GE Faulkner, RR Bajaj, MA Silver, MS Mitchell, and DA Alter, ‘Sedentary time and its association with risk for disease incidence, mortality, and hospitalization in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis,’ Annals of Internal Medicine, 2015, 162 (2):123-132. https://doi.org/10.7326/M14-1651

² Y Du, B Liu, Y Sun, ‘Trends in adherence to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans for aerobic activity and time spent on sedentary behaviour among US adults, 2007-2016’, JAMA Network Open, 2019 2(7): e197597. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.7597

³ R Cassells, H Gong and A Duncan, Race against time: how Australians spend their time, NATSEM, 2011; D Nahum, Work and life in a pandemic: An update on hours of work and unpaid overtime under COVID-19, The Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute., 2020.

⁴ H Arem, SC Moore, A Patel, et al, ‘Leisure time physical activity and mortality: a detailed pooled analysis of the dose-response relationship,’ JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015. 175(6): 959-967. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.0533

⁵ WHO, Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour, World Health Organization, 2020; F Bull, SS Al-Ansari, S Biddle et al, ‘World Health Organization 2020 global guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour’, Br J Sports Med, 2020, 54(24). doi:10.1136/bjsports-2020-102955

⁶ I Janssen et al, ‘A systematic review of compositional data analysis studies examining associations between sleep, sedentary behaviour, and physical activity with health outcomes in adults’, Applied Physiology, Nutrition & Metabolism, 2020, 45, S248-S257. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2020-0160

⁷ M Lock, D Post, J Dollman and G Parfitt, ‘Efficacy of theory-informed workplace physical activity interventions: a systematic literature review with meta-analyses’, Health Psychology Review, 2021, 15(4):483-507. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2020.1718528

⁸ Chau et al., ‘”In initiative overload”: Australian perspectives on promoting physical activity in the workplace from diverse industries’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019,16(3):516. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030516

⁹ A Grimani, E Aboagye and L Kwak, ‘The effectiveness of workplace nutrition and physical activity interventions in improving productivity, work performance and workability: a systematic review’, BMC Public Health, 2019, 19, article 1676.

¹⁰ Chau et al., ‘In initiative overload: Australian perspectives on promoting physical activity in the workplace from diverse industries,’ Int J Environ Res Public Health

¹¹ Ablah et al., Opportunities for employers to support physical activity through policy, National Institutes of Health, 2019.

¹² JF Sallis and K Glanz, Physical activity and food environments: solutions to the obesity epidemic. Milbank Q, 2009, 87(1):123-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0009.2009.00550.