Fit for Work? The Boss may be counting your calories

Thanks to a new Big Brother-style gadget being adopted by American companies — and coming to Britain early next year — bosses can measure exactly how many calories you are burning in a day and compare the data with “performance benchmarks”.

In other words: staying in shape might soon become as important as getting to the office on time.

I'm all for new ways to motivate staff to improve their health and wellbeing and I'm sure this gadget will work for some. You can read more about it here.

It won't be for everyone though, so what businesses who adopt it must do, along with all organisations putting wellbeing programmes in place, is aim to devise a range of initiatives - a menu of interesting wellbeing services - that ensures there is something for everyone. This means tackling the key areas of health and wellbeing - exercise, nutrition and stress management - with creative solutions that fit the various schedules and priorities of the workforce.

This is the most simple way for businesses to make wellbeing easy for every single employee. Not only can there be no more excuses for not participating in something relating to improving wellbeing and performance; better than that, all members of staff will be able to find something healthy that inspires them and that will guarantee they get a great result.

One size wellbeing does not fit all so when planning initiatives, take care to sample individuals to find out what they would find useful and make sure your solutions cater for everyone.

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SMEs are invited to bid for share of £4 million Health, Work and Well-being Challenge Fund

The Government is to invest £4 million over the next two years in improving health and wellbeing for staff at small organisations.

This is fantastic news for SMEs that may have been struggling to find or justify a budget for wellbeing. The other thing businesses of 1-249 people struggle with is time to plan initiatives in this area so if you'd like some help on how to design a wellbeing programme that could then be funded by the Government, we'd be happy to help come up with the solution that will get you great results for your people and your business.

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Keep Calm and Carry On

Next Wednesday 4th November is National Stress Awareness Day and so is a great time for businesses to promote health and wellbeing initiatives in the office. Some of the studies we've done in various businesses over recent months show that over 75% of staff are stressed, this being reflected in high blood pressure readings, with more than half of these people categorised as experiencing moderate to severe hypertension according to the World Health Organisation Classifications.


Blood pressure is a great indicator of general health but something that many people don't get checked often enough. It's a great idea for businesses to help staff discover their own BP and other key health indicators too, and we find that employees are grateful to the business for giving them the opportunity to find out something about their health that could ultimately save their life. They're then motivated to make quick changes to improve their health and wellbeing which can only be a good thing for the organisation. If you'd like to offer health assessments and screenings to your staff, we can help set this up.

Another way we help reduce stress within businesses is to deliver relaxation sessions. You'd be amazed at how many people who claim they just can't relax, end up feeling calm and focused after just 20 or 30 minutes. Here's one technique that helps people to calm down in just 30 seconds

And here are a couple of links containing useful information on coping with stress in the workplace - please feel free to make this information available to your colleagues.

How to cope with work related stress

Three top tips to reduce stress

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