TalentMap | Knowledge Base
Speak to Our TeamManager GuideLogin to Compass
  • Getting Started
  • STEP 1: PREPARE FOR ACTION
    • Executive Driven Survey Overview
    • Timelines and Deliverables
    • Schedule a Meeting with your Consultant or Project Manager
    • Stategic Assessment Session
    • Prepare for Action FAQ
      • Who will be responsible for different aspects of the project?
      • What kind of support can we expect during each phase of the survey process?
      • What are the recommended timelines for various project phases?
      • When should we schedule the questionnaire design call?
      • What kind of access will we have to the online reporting tool?
  • STEP 2: DEVELOP QUESTIONNAIRE
    • Questionnaire Design
      • TalentMap Employee Engagement Questionnaire
      • 5-Point Rating Scale
      • Response Scale From Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree
      • Length of an Employee Engagement Questionnaire
      • Determining Areas of Importance
      • Employee Net Promoter Score
    • Questionnaire FAQ
      • Can we customize the standard questionnaire?
      • How can we incorporate our specific themes or categories into the survey?
      • Can we add questions about our organization's mission, vision or strategic plans?
      • Which benchmark should we choose?
      • How do I sign off on a survey?
      • What is the difference between engagement and satisfaction?
      • Where should we place demographic questions?
      • Will the survey questions change in the future?
      • When you use the term “we” in the questionnaire, who does this refer to?
      • Can we change the scale so that Strongly Disagree is the last option?
  • STEP 3: PRE-SURVEY COMMUNICATION & SETUP
    • Participant Information File
      • Change Date of Birth and Length of Service to Ranges
    • Email Whitelisting
      • Compass Email Whitelisting (DIY)
    • Survey Communications
      • Comprehensive Guide To Survey Communications
      • Pre-Survey Email Communication Package
      • Promotional Posters
      • Employee Info Sheets
      • Engagement Survey Invitation Email
      • Exit Survey Invitation Email
      • Entry Survey Invitation Email
      • PIN Survey Invitation Email
    • Response Rate Strategies
    • Pre-Survey FAQ
      • Is the survey confidential?
      • How can we effectively communicate the survey to our employees?
      • How long should the survey be open?
      • Can I make changes to my PIF?
      • What methods are available for survey distribution?
      • Should we include new employees in our survey?
      • Should we survey contract or term employees?
      • What languages are available for communications material?
      • How long does it take to program my survey?
      • Are there standard invitations for Pulse surveys?
      • Why am I getting invalid entries in my import log?
  • STEP 4: DEPLOY EMPLOYEE SURVEY
    • Monitor Response Rates
    • Survey Live FAQ
      • How often are survey response rates updated?
      • Can I save my responses and complete the survey later?
      • Can responses be changed once submitted?
      • Can I extend my survey?
      • My survey link is not working what do I do?
      • We had bouncebacks, can you send the survey to them immediately?
      • What reports will our organization have access to?
  • STEP 5: ANALYZE, INTERPRET & REPORT
    • Compass Reports
      • General
        • Filter Data
        • Bulk Export
      • Snapshot
        • Webpage
          • Snapshot Report Overview
          • Sort Data
          • Compare to Overall
          • Compare to Other
          • Hide Benchmark and / or Previous Period
        • Export to PowerPoint
          • Export Response Rate
          • Export Lookup / Lookdown
          • Export Heatmap
          • Export Key Driver Analysis
          • Export AI Comment Summaries
        • Export to Excel
      • Heatmap
        • Heatmap Overview
        • Heatmap Previous Period
      • Comments
        • Comments Overview
        • AI Comment Analysis
          • Ask Comment Questions
          • Comment Summary & Suggestions
          • Search Comments by Meaning
        • Comment Settings
          • Hide Words & Phrases
            • Import Hidden Words or Phrases
          • Comment Dimension Score
          • Sentiment Analysis
          • Minimum Words & Random Sample
          • Auto-Translate
        • Word Cloud
          • Word Cloud Overview
          • Word Cloud Settings
          • Import Stop Words
        • Export to Excel
        • How to Handle and Distribute Verbatim Comments
        • FAQ
          • How should disclosure of employee comments be handled?
          • Who has access to comments in Compass?
          • How is AI data handled?
      • Insights
      • Correlations
      • Prepare Reports for Senior Leadership
      • Reporting FAQ
        • How should I analyze the survey results?
        • What is key driver analysis?
        • What is Pearson correlation?
        • What size group is required to do driver analysis?
        • Why do some scores total over 100%?
        • What is the purpose of the neutral option?
        • What is the minimum participation percentage to achieve statistically valid results?
        • Should we focus on dimensions with low scores?
        • How does report filter confidentiality work?
        • Can I turn off the confidentiality similarity warning message?
        • Can I filter by questions in the survey?
    • Compass Admin
      • Results
        • General
          • Enable Results for Reporting
          • Edit Demographic Report Labels
          • Update a Survey Title
        • Participants
          • Edit Participant Information
          • Remove Participant(s) From an Email Campaign
        • Survey Items
          • Customize Survey Items
          • Convert a Survey Item into a Demographic Filter
        • Benchmarks
        • Previous Period
        • Snapshot Customization
        • Dashboard Editor
        • Assign Access
      • Users
        • Permissions
        • Add a User
        • Log In with Microsoft Account
        • Assign Restricted User to a Report
  • STEP 6: DISCUSS, CLARIFY & PLAN
    • TalentMap Reports
      • Scouting Report
      • HR Preview
      • Executive Presentation
      • Additional Presentations
      • TalentMap Report FAQ
        • What’s the difference between a preview and a final executive presentation?
        • High satisfaction vs low engagement (or vis versa)?
    • Post-Survey Consulting Services
    • Focus Groups
      • Conduct a Focus Group
      • Focus Group Invitation Email - Template
    • Management Resources
      • Improve Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace
      • 360 Leadership
      • Employee Onboarding
      • Stay Interviews
      • Exit Interviews
      • One-on-One Meetings
  • STEP 7: COMMUNICATE & TAKE ACTION
    • Communicating Results
      • Constructive Strategies for Leaders with Low Scores
    • Action Planning
      • Organization vs. Leadership Action Plans
        • Pitfalls to Avoid When Action Planning for Senior Leaders and Managers
      • Develop an Action Plan
      • Create Action Teams, Documentation and Implementation
    • Action Planning Resources
      • Before You Start
        • Action Planning Quick Wins
        • 6 Steps to Successful Action Planning
        • Plan for Action Planning Difficulties
        • Proven Action Planning Tips
      • Tactical
        • How to Start Action Planning
        • Action Plan Framework Guide
        • Action Planning - How To Guide
        • Action Planning Checklist
        • Action Plan Template
        • 3 Post-Survey Action Planning Tactics
    • Action Plan Library
      • Compensation
        • Bonus Pay Or Incentives
        • Determining Fair Compensation
        • Total Rewards Packages
      • Customer Focus
        • Build Loyalty, Not Delight
        • Making Customer Feedback Work for You
        • Translating Competition into Improvement
      • Diversity & Inclusion
        • Employee Resource Groups
        • Mentoring Program
        • Multicultural Potluck
        • Sensitivity Training
      • Growth & Development
        • Develop Cross-Training Programs
        • Implementing Job Shadowing Programs
        • Increase / Improve Training
        • Instituting Regular Career Pathing Conversations
        • Professional Development Plans
      • Immediate Management
        • Avoid Switch-Tracking When Given Feedback
        • Developing Emotional Intelligence
        • Fika: Creating Genuine Connections Over Coffee
        • The Pomodoro Technique
      • Information & Communication
        • BLUF Your Way to Better Communication
        • Stand Up for One Another
        • Want Better Groupwork? Talk Less
      • Innovation
        • Establishing Innovative Onboarding
        • HR Analytics
        • Mental Health Coaching
      • Mental Health
        • Lunch-n-learns
        • Stress Audit
        • The Canine-Colleague Culture Connection
        • Volunteer Program
      • My Role
        • Autonomy Advances the Workplace
      • Performance Feedback
        • Improved / Better Communications
        • Set Clear Goals
        • Utilize the Right Technology
      • Safety
        • Fitness Challenge
        • Health and Safety Committee
        • Health Fair
        • Kick the Sit Out of Work
      • Senior Leadership
        • Develop Empathy Superpowers
        • Embracing Change in Long-Term Thinking
        • Evangelizing Your Vision
        • Hosting a World Cafe Session
        • Increasing Visibility
        • Integrating Vision to Boost Engagement
        • Setting Ambitious and Realistic SMART Goals
        • Understanding Communication Styles
        • Use Storytelling to Share Your Vision
      • Systems & Resources
        • Investing in Technology
      • Teamwork
        • Clarifying Roles
        • Project Management Tools
        • Reward Excellent Teamwork
      • Work Environment
        • Adapting to Open Office Environments
      • Work/Life Balance
        • Enforced Digital Downtime
        • Flextime
        • Focus on Productivity Not Hours
  • DIY SURVEY DESIGN & DEPLOYMENT
    • Compass Questionnaire Design (DIY)
      • Getting Started (DIY)
        • Build a Survey
        • Style a Survey
        • Test a Survey
        • Pulse Survey Overview
        • Getting Started With Logic (Branching)
      • Compass Survey Design (DIY)
        • Build
          • Question Types
          • Add a Question
          • Require a Question
          • Add Text / Instruction
          • Page Title and Description
          • Copy & Paste
          • Reorder Questions
          • Reorder Pages
          • Copy a Survey
          • Skip Logic
          • Question Logic
          • Restore "Undo" a Question or Page
          • Textbox / Long Answer Character Limit
          • Post a Survey Link
          • Disable a Question
        • Style
          • Add Logo
          • Text Options
          • Preview Survey by Device or Language
          • Choose Respondent Interaction
          • Hide Progress Bar
          • Hide Page Titles, Descriptions, and Question Numbers
        • Test
          • Survey Diagnostics
          • Invite Others to Test
          • View Comments Made by Survey Testers
        • Tools
          • Rename a Survey Title
          • Text & Translations
            • Change Required Text, Messages, and More
            • Add Translation
            • Test Translation
            • Share A Translated Survey
            • Reuse Translations for Standard Messaging
        • Design FAQ
          • Why is there a red asterisk on my question?
          • How do I add or remove page breaks?
          • How can I design surveys to be more accessible?
          • Why is my question title and/or answer option blank?
          • Why Is the font for some of my survey questions different?
          • Why are the option buttons not displaying in my survey?
          • What is a thank you page?
    • Compass Survey Deployment (DIY)
      • Create an Email Campaign
      • Hide Unsubscribe Link
      • Upload Participants
      • Add Reminder or Thank You Emails
      • Add Image to Email
      • Change Email Font
      • Test Email Campaign
      • Convert UTC Time
      • Resend a Survey Link
      • Source Tracking
      • Rename an Email Campaign
      • Close a Survey
  • GENERAL
    • FAQ
      • How do I escalate an issue?
      • When will I receive an invoice?
    • Product Updates
      • April 29th, 2025
      • April 16th, 2025
      • March 20th, 2025
      • February 3rd, 2025
      • January 7th, 2025
      • 2024
        • November 25th, 2024
        • November 12th, 2024
        • September 30th, 2024
        • September 1st, 2024
        • August 19th, 2024
        • July 19th, 2024
        • June 25th, 2024
        • June 11th, 2024
        • May 30th, 2024
        • May 2nd, 2024
        • April 22nd, 2024
        • March 18th, 2024
        • February 13th, 2024
        • January 23rd, 2024
      • 2023
        • October 3rd, 2023
        • August 30th, 2023
        • July 17th, 2023
        • July 4th, 2023
        • June 14th, 2023
        • June 2nd, 2023
        • May 4th, 2023
        • February 27th, 2023
        • February 10th, 2023
        • January 25th, 2023
    • ISO 27001
      • Data Access Requests
      • Information Security News
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Goal
  • Action
  • Reference Material

Was this helpful?

Export as PDF
  1. STEP 7: COMMUNICATE & TAKE ACTION
  2. Action Plan Library
  3. Safety

Kick the Sit Out of Work

It’s time to retire the archaic notion of employees working without leaving their desks head-down all day. Incorporating movement into employee’s work-lifestyle can increases productivity, creativity, employee’s happiness all while reducing hard costs that hit your bottom line, like health benefits premiums.

Goal

Update the work environment to include less sedentary behaviour while maintaining or increasing overall productivity.

What is Kick the Sit Out of Work?

Sedentary work-lifestyle involves prolonged periods of inactivity, and an absence of whole-body movement. Employees are at the mercy of their employer’s work-lifestyle expectations which often include sitting for excessively long periods of time.

The human body is designed for movement and should alternate between sitting, standing and activities, such as walking, regularly throughout the day. Sitting for most of the during the day is harming more than employee’s health, it’s costing your workplace money. Employees experiencing a sedentary work-lifestyle are more likely to develop chronic pain, heart-related conditions, and a range of other afflictions that could cause them to deliver subpar work or miss a workday altogether. It also has implications on your workplace healthcare premiums.

Even if workers manage to undertake their recommended 30 minutes of active exercise a day, if they still remain sedentary for the rest of the day, they will have an increased risk of health problems.

How does Kick the Sit Out of Work improve employee engagement and culture?

Wellness and employee engagement go hand-in-hand. A study by Gallup found that:

  • 62% of engaged employees feel their work positively affects their physical health.

  • 54% of actively disengaged employees say their work life has a negative effect on their physical health.

Employees feel engaged when work feels more like a community and less like a factory. The employees work-lifestyle can foster a sense of community in the workplace.

When an employee is happy with their job, it positively affects their health. When an employee is healthy and feeling their best mentally and physically, they’ll feel happier in the workplace. It’s a relationship that builds off of one another, and employers should really take advantage of that.

What are the benefits?

  1. Improved concentration

  2. Sharper memory

  3. Prolonged mental stamina

  4. Enhanced creativity

  5. Lower risk of musculoskeletal pain, discomfort and injury

  6. Reduced risk of chronic diseases

  7. Lower risk of fatigue

  8. Healthy maintenance of the circulatory system and digestive tract

How do you conduct Kick the Sit Out of Work in the workplace?

Changing work-lifestyle habits and environments is often seen as time-consuming, complex and expensive but there are many easy low-cost initiatives available. To foster a healthier work-lifestyle encourage:

  • Stand-up desks. Available online for a little as $25 each.

  • Walking meetings. Improves concentration, memory, and creativity – not to mention mood.

  • Cubicle workouts. Combats stiffness in the neck and shoulders, listlessness, and back pain.

  • Lunch and burns. Use yoga and/or workout videos from YouTube.

  • Incidental movement. Position printers and bins away from work areas.

  • Schedule changes. Plan breaks and task variation to break up long periods of sitting.

  • Make healthy eating easy. Stop providing unhealthy options and stock the lunchroom with fruits, nuts, veggies and dressing.

Action

Normalize Movement in the Workplace

Activity - Lunch and Burns To help employees re-charge mid-day, start up a lunchtime walking group or offer in-house lunchtime yoga sessions (with an instructor or a video). The movement pattern of walking will have a calming effect, while the yoga stretches, and mindful breathing exercises will provide a refreshed outlook for the afternoon.

Result - Better Focus Physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, resulting in better focus and attention. These activities are a form of muscular meditation; performing a repetitive type of physical activity which reduces stress and puts the brain in a more relaxed state.


Activity - Walking During all-day meetings, break up long periods of sitting by having the group stand, stretch or take a quick stroll around the office. If a team member needs to be mentally alert for a big presentation, encourage them to take a walk or do some brisk physical activity ahead of time.

Result - Think Better People who are regularly active are consistently more productive after seven hours of work than those who aren’t – they have more energy, clearer minds and enhanced concentration. Since physical activity can have a dramatic impact on our cognitive and organizational abilities, it’s a valuable tool to help optimize employee performance.


Activity - Interactive Groups Experiment with walking or standing meetings to prevent things from getting stagnant. During training sessions, use icebreaker games or interactive group tasks (using white boards or post-it notes) to get participants up and moving.

Result - Learn Better Physically active employees are primed to take in and retain new information, since the brain’s learning and memory systems responds strongly to aerobic exercise. Research shows that problem solving, memory and attention are immediately enhanced following exercise.


Activity - Fresh Air for Fresh Ideas Taking a personal brainstorming session outside is a tried-and-true way to stimulate creativity and “blue-sky” thinking. Inspiration may strike while strolling to the coffee shop or walking to a transit stop at the end of the day. Remind your team that fresh air can spark fresh ideas.

Result - Create Better Daily physical activity is scientifically proven to improve divergent and convergent thinking, the two components of creative thought. Studies show that aerobic forms of exercise – such as walking– are most effective in boosting creativity.


Activity - Walk the Talk By being a role model and showing those around you that you prioritize physical activity, your team members are likely to do the same. Build positive habits. During the workday, take regular breaks to stretch or move about the office (set a timer on your phone if needed).

Result -Lead Better Leadership is stressful and demanding. The good news is, a consistent physical activity routine will make you an even better leader, by enhancing your confidence and productivity.

Reference Material

PreviousHealth FairNextSenior Leadership

Last updated 12 months ago

Was this helpful?

Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job
How to Support Employee Health Instead of Sapping It