Activities
Walking Wednesday

What Is It?

A Walking Wednesday program encourages staff to do something active together by walking as a group every Wednesday at noon hour. What better way to bring staff together, improve staff communication and teamwork, and promote health.

Here Is How It Works!

Place a Walking Wednesday sign up sheet on the staff bulletin board or in a common visible location. Divide those who signed up into different teams, and give each team a name (or allow them to come up with their own team name). To encourage staff participation, launch the program during workplace wellness week and offer prizes as the incentive.

After teams are in place put a map of Canada up on the staff bulletin board. Stick one tack for each team on the map in a city designated as the starting point (use different color tacks to represent each team). The goal for each team is to walk across Canada following a predetermined route. Moving the tacks along the map shows where each team has reached on their trek across Canada.

Every Wednesday, teams will meet at a meeting place with their walking shoes on, and set out for a 30-minute walk. Every 10-minutes walked per person corresponds to 1000km on the map. Therefore each person from a given team can accumulate a maximum of 3000km every Wednesday. The more people a team has out walking on the Wednesday the more mileage the team will build up collectively.

Prizes or incentives are given to teams who make it all the way across Canada. Prizes or incentives could also be given out when teams reach predetermined cities or places.

Quotes

"Two-thirds of Canadians still lead dangerously inactive lives. We know that a sedentary lifestyle is as big a risk factor as smoking, in terms of health."
- Allen Rock 1999

"The more we learn about various factors which influence health, the more we appreciate the role of physical activity, nutrition and the workplace environment on health in our society."
- David Dodge, 1999,
then Deputy Minister of Health,
Current Chair of Bank of Canada

Facts

When stress levels increase, job satisfaction can suffer.

According to the Conference Board of Canada (1999) 50% of workers are experiencing moderate to high levels of stress as a result of trying to balance work and home lives. In 1989, only 27% of workers felt this way.

Stress-related problems cost Canadian business $12 billion a year. Health promoting workplaces can prevent much of that stress. (Employee Absenteeism, Conference Board of Canada, 1993)

The annual cost of employees who smoke has been estimated to be up to $2565 per employee. (Smoking and the Bottom Line, Conference Board of Canada, January, 1997). Smoke-free workplace policies will decrease this cost. During workplace wellness week why not promote and track employee participation in the quit and win contest.

Research suggests that there is a link between active living and employee health and well being. Healthier employees result in:

• lower health-care costs;
• lower turnover rates;
• reduced absenteeism;
• fewer medical claims;
• higher productivity; and
• improved employee morale.

"Canada Life, based in Toronto, developed a health promotion program in 1978 which was independently evaluated over a 10-year period. The program showed a return of $3.40 on each corporate dollar invested based on reduced employee turnover, greater productivity and decreased medical claims by participating employees." (Dyke, Dianne. "The Wellness Package." Benefits Canada. January, 1999)

The success of a workplace wellness program starts with the initiative and support of senior management. The next step is to train managers to facilitate the development of a healthy workplace and to integrate wellness into the day-to-day processes. Training managers in participative management practices has the added value of improving employees' sense of their value of the company. (Transportation Health & Safety Association of Ontario)