Encouraging physical activity at your office can help cultivate a more balanced, focused, and productive team environment. From getting employees off of their feet throughout the day to promoting natural movement throughout your workspace, the team at DESIGN+BUILD has various strategies for ensuring your employees’ physical health. In this post, we’ll examine some of those strategies, so you can give your team the office space they need to succeed.

Steps to Encourage Exercise

Start With Desk Spaces

We’ll get started with one of the most straightforward strategies for encouraging exercise in the office: developing employee desk spaces with physical activity in mind. Height-adjustable desks require little to no modification to your existing office layout while enabling employees to vary how they work throughout the day. For example, your team can burn calories, improve circulation, reduce back and neck strain, and increase mental clarity by spending part of the workday standing. Then, when they need a more traditional desk, all employees have to do is adjust a knob or lever, and they can quickly return to a seated position.

Looking for something a little more involved than standing throughout the day? You can share plenty of exercises with your team that they can do at their desks throughout the day. Just make sure they have a flexible enough desk space to move freely without disturbing co-workers.

Dedicate a Space for Exercise

Nothing says that an organization prioritizes physical fitness like having a dedicated exercise space at your office. If you’re in the process of office space planning and you have the room, consider installing a gym or workout room at your facility. That way, your team will have a visual reminder and physical encouragement to make time for exercise before, after, or throughout the workday. Make sure to equip the space with equipment that matches your employees’ needs. The equipment can be as simple as yoga mats and balance balls or as involved as Smith machines and dumbbell racks. Even if you don’t have the room for a full-time gym, you can design flexible office spaces that can be rearranged or used for purposes other than working out.

Hire a Trainer

On top of setting aside specific areas for promoting exercise and physical activity, you can also hire a trainer to run a group training session throughout the workweek. This strategy encourages exercise, facilitates team bonding, and helps employees break up the workday stress. At the same time, holding group workouts can encourage team members to exercise when they struggle to find motivation.

The Portland Office Design Experts

If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities for encouraging exercise in your office, contact the design experts at DESIGN+BUILD today. We’ll start with a workplace audit to clarify the strengths of your existing office while exploring how you can better develop a work environment around your team’s needs.