Drug Education and Intervention in the Workplace

Gaining upper management backing is vital to the success of a physical exercise plan.

Whether the changes you’d like to see involve the work environment, central policies or specific programs, successfully implementing your ideas depends on management reinforcement.

Support from upper management is vital for 3 reasons:

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

It’s valuable to keep management involved throughout a physical activity program, but at three points you’ll need backing for:

• An overall concept, including a go-ahead to assess 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 initiative to improve it along the way or to advocate for continuing or expanding the initiative.

Approaching Senior Management

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

• Prepare a corporation case clearly outlining how the corporation will profit by promoting physical exercise during work.
• List the individual, social and corporate advantages of physical exercise and the advantages of being active during work.
• 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 upper management:

• How will this help our company?
• How can we arouse employees to participate?
• How much will it cost to operate this program or bring about this change?
• How will we know a year from now whether or not this was a good 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 better 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 exercise challenges.