When I left the gym last night, I joked with a friend who said she was going home to a beer; that I was going home for supper and for me there was a direct correlation between how nice I was to my wife in the morning and the likelihood of there being supper on the table when I get home.
But that little quip began to make me think, as there is a direct correlation between how well I feel, how fit I am and how hard I can work and focus on the job at hand.
I’m aware that many larger firms have gyms and a very clear process of encouragement for employees to keep fit. Of course small companies wouldn’t have the funds to have their own gym, nor probably the space, but having a healthy workforce works for everyone, so how could smaller firms get their staff to think “fit”?
Surely also, it would be worth large chains of sports centres to support and encourage the very same of small companies locally as this would contribute to the bottom line in a business where presumably costs were already covered and chances are that some of those new corporate members would spend more money whilst they were at the gym?
I took a look at two of the best known, Nuffield Health and Virgin; Nuffield Health have a dedicated section on their website about corporate wellbeing and the approach they take. Nuffield say that because everyone is different they adopt a consultative approach and encourage a preventative health culture, they have specialist clinical team and can help with wellbeing strategies, saying they want to develop an ongoing supportive relationship with the company.
Virgin call their gyms “Virgin Active health clubs”, but whilst I’m sure they do have a corporate approach, when I looked through their website, it was highly animated, not easy to navigate (in my view) and whilst I read an interesting little story about how yoga increased a chaps performance in bed, I found no mention of the corporate membership or approach.
Now… I work near a Nuffield Heath gym and go there regularly but what I find astonishing though is that in all the time I’ve worked close by (and that’s over 12 years) I have never seen a flyer, invitation or advertisement from any local gym to encourage me to go there, it has all been my own doing – are they missing an opportunity which could help everyone?
Blog image courtesy of Personal Training Corpus Christi
