Over the years I have talked quite a lot about workplace wellbeing. Part of my pitch to joing the Board of the LLEP was about how I wanted to encourage an active workforce and active workplaces. I arrived with a health and wellbeing agenda which I have tried to help others understand and adopt. It has not always been at the front of mind for every business if I am honest and progress has been slow.

The Covid crisis has of course changed the dynamic around ‘workplace’ and as the first few weeks of the March 2020 lockdown showed people took up the government advice to get out and exercise daily. Our streets and parks seemed full of socially distanced examples of walkers, cyclists and joggers.

Fast forward to the Winter months and we know that this initial burst didn’t last. All the data from Sport England shows that activiity levels dropped. Like the New Year diet or gym membership people didn’t quite create new habits that lasted. Even for the most committed the dark eveneing and cold weather is enough to put you off that run! I know I am sitting here now looking into the gloomy skies and cold drizzle. I have decidied to go on my indoor bike instead.

But as my friend Hayley Lever has writte more eloquently than me in this blog - Lockdown wellbeing: leading, role modelling and enabling happier, healtheir staff it is down to leaders to both model the positive activity behaviours but also to show genuine leadership around the permissive natture of your organisaiton to allow time for physical activity during daylight and work hours - whatever they are these days!

I think many bosses have genuinely been surprised by lockdown and just how productive people can be whilst from working at home. We changed more in 2 months than we had in 3 decades of talking about more working from home. But it can come at a cost. Without the daily ‘commute’ and possible break for lunch it all too easy to sit in front of Teams/ Zoom all day long. We know sitting is the new smoking. We need to encourage our staff to at least get up and move around each hour. But as Hayley has said we should go further, we should encourage getting outside and using our allowed ‘local exercise’ to mean just that.

I hope I have always modelled this behaviour with my teams/ staff. I have modelled it personlly by suggesting that my gym/sport is diarised and kept as a commitment just like anyhting else. I always tell staff that they too can exercise during the day and as long as the work is completed I am not that bothered if it is in a strict 9-5 window (which also means telling people to switch off too!)

We know this is not always poosible for people in many jobs which require being physically present… you can fill in the spaces here with many examples. But if you are home office bound this should be for you. This is where we need to think differently and to link this to our other work in inequalities in sport and physical activity. I know just saying this isn’t going to help change the behaviour of millions of people… but it canbe a start in one element of our lives that has become more sedentary.

This doesn’t have to be about couch to 5k or sport. It is as much about a brisk walk or at least getting up and moving around. There are plenty of resources a available. Here are some from Leicestershire Active Partnership

As part of our build back better and fairer from this pandemic we hope this is one behaviour change we can all make.