Occupational health and fitness

HEALTH AND FITNESS SLIDE

Occupational health, Fitness and Wellbeing Home

n	Charter

n	Health and fitness slide

n	From injury to dysfunction

n	Manifesto

n	Model

n	Objectives

n	Risk factor audit

n	Strategy

n	Swifties and fallacies

n	What we can do for you?

n	Ebook presentation: Best Practice in Occupational Health, Fitness and Wellbeing

n	The Crookback Proposal

As a general rule, there is a decline in the health and fitness of people who do not take part in a regular and systematic program of physical activity. With respect to the workplace, the cost is enormous.

At some point, many people slip down the health and fitness slide into an unfit, unhealthy state, thereby increasing their likelihood of becoming sick or dysfunctional. For some it may happen early in life. For others it may take 20 - 30 years. For the lucky ones it may not happen at all.

The particular dysfunction they succumb to will vary from person to person, but probably targetting the point of least resistance.

But don't bet on people being fit and healthy and feeling great for too long unless they are taking part in a regular, vigorous and systematic fitness program.

THE INVESTMENT

Money spent encouraging people to keep themselves stronger and more flexible is not a cost, it's an investment. Treatment on the other hand is a cost and you can probably get a figure for what it's currently costing your organisation.

The big costs to employing people can be measured.

1.	Absenteeism Measure the average number of days that people have off each year. Three days off is a good result. Subtract 3 from the number, multiply it by the number of staff and them multiply it again by the $200 a day it costs to employ people. Include days off for sickness, sickies, minding sick children and days off on worker’s compensation.

2.	Worker’s compensation Find out the total and individual costs per person of worker’s compensation premiums. Apportion the costs to major business sectors so you can get a handle on which areas of the organisation where health issues are being poorly managed. Most organisations will get a big shock when these figures are added up. If in the first year an organisation were to allocate an equivalent amount of money to strength and flexibility programs equivalent to either the existing cost or treatment (and lost time) of musculo-skeletal dysfunction (including case management salaries, time off work, etc etc, or to allocate the same amount of money as it does for EAP, then I am sure they could expect a marked decrease in musculo-skeletal dysfunction.

3.	Presenteeism Presenteeism can be measured using the ■ Mind and Body profile, ■ Fitness Profile ■ Musculo-skeletal risk Profile ■ Stress profile ■ career Satisfaction profile ■ cardiac, Stroke and Diabetes Risk profile. Click here to take a look at the profiles and some results.

FEEL BETTER

You want your employees to feel good, better or best.

The most significant benefits of being fitter (whether it be aerobic, strength, or flexibility exercise) are psychological, 'I feel better'. This is because the mind and body are connected. Along with feeling better, people have

• more energy, more vitality, more alertness

• more enthusiasm for their own lives

• an enhanced positive mood state

• relief from anxiety and depression

• an enhanced ability to cope with stress

• an improved level of self confidence and self esteem

• a positive affirmation of well-being.

As a rule of thumb, the cost of the privilege of having a sit down job is one hour of exercise for every eight hours sitting down.