Walking
Walking for Health
Walking in your workplace
In line with Tees Valley Sport's Lasting Legacy plan, which aims to increase participation in sport and physical activity across the Tees Valley, Natural England's 'Walking for Health' initiative can offer your workplace the opportunity to run short, lead walks for your employees in order to increase their levels of physical activity.
Walking is very popular with workplaces, as virtually anyone can do it, and people can walk anywhere and at any time; it's also free (no special equipment required), and individuals can start slowly and gradually build up. Walking is known to make people feel good; it increases energy levels and reduces stress; it also helps people to sleep better and reduces blood pressure, and it helps with weight management. Walking for Health encourages more people to start walking as part of a group, which brings additional benefits; people are able to make friends and they have increased motivation, which means they keep walking. The walking for Health project is a perfect 'off the shelf' package that could help your workplace introduce lead walks to improve the health and wellbeing of staff. We can offer;
• Free training for staff to become Walk Leaders (delivered by qualified Cascade Trainers)
• Free insurance (third party public liability) for trained Walk Leaders
• Free Accreditation process (optional) to ensure minimum standards are practiced
• Free kit / equipment for Walk Leaders (for newly Accredited schemes only)
• Access to free promotional 'templates' for you to complete to promote your walks
• Access to 'Walkfinder' on our website (enables users to search and find local walks), which you could use to advertise the walks
• Access to a secure, online database to monitor and record your walks and walkers
• Access to evaluation tools and findings to support the benefits of walking (useful when applying for funding etc)
• General help and support to get things up and running
Workplace health walks are already up and running at various workplaces in the North East, including HMRC at Peterlee and Natural England at Newburn Riverside. They work well because everyone can get involved; there are no barriers!
How can I get my business involved?
There would be no financial commitment from your organisation; we would simply need someone (or several employees) to train as Walk Leaders so that you can start your first walks. We'd also require someone to promote the walks and complete basic paperwork (initial health questionnaire and register). Alternatively, you may prefer to simply advertise existing walks to your staff; visit http://www.wfh.naturalengland.org.uk/ and search for walks using the 'Walkfinder' tool to find your nearest walk, then all your staff have to do is turn up and walk!
If you have any questions or would like any further information please contact;
Kate Williams, Lead Adviser - Walking for Health, Natural England, The Quadrant, Newburn Riverside, Newcastle, NE15 8NZ, Tel: 07810 150936
Physical activity can contribute to the health of businesses through increasing productivity, improving absenteeism and ability to return to work after illness, retaining staff, creating a positive corporate image and helping your business achieve Health at Work awards.
