WORKPLACE WELLBEING ACTIVITY: Walking meeting

As we continue to highlight the importance of workplace wellbeing, it’s important to understand we must incorporate this into our everyday working practice.

One way to do this would be by introducing walking meetings into your place of work.

This is another free-to-implement idea that can greatly improve the wellbeing and productivity of your workforce.

Having a diverse workforce is great, and finding ways to interact and include everybody within your wellbeing strategy is the correct step to take.

The workplace has become a traditionally sedentary setting. The norm is to hold meetings in meeting or boardrooms, offices, or break-out spaces. All of these involve a large element of sitting and greatly reduce our activity levels.

To combat this, let’s look at the benefits for physical health, mental wellbeing and workplace productivity introduced through walking meetings.

Here are our key points when introducing walking meetings to your workplace.

Increased cardiovascular health

According to recent studies, the risk of cardiovascular disease increases by up to 20% for people sitting more than eight hours a day.

To maintain our health, it is recommended we take part in 150 minutes of physical activity a week. Whilst for many people this is in the form of recreational sports, gym, and exercise classes. This can be as simple as a half hour’s walk. 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week makes up our 150-minute target. Why not implement walking meetings as a way of improving our physical health?

Walking outdoors has health benefits, including vitamin D and increased oxygen intake. 

Improvements in creative thinking

Psychological studies show that walking meetings can lead to an 80% increase in creative thinking. Sitting for prolonged periods indoors can lead to tiredness and fatigue, which can be combated with movement and new environments.

By reducing fatigue and tiredness, we can help with cognitive function by sparking new and creative ideas we may not have otherwise come up with.

Mental health benefits

Movement and activity can have both an immediate and long-term impact on our mental health.

An instant reduction in stress and anxiety can be achieved simply by moving our bodies. Another long-term benefit can be a reduction in feelings of loneliness and isolation for remote workers.

Whilst the main function of work meetings is usually to increase productivity, there is also a social element which has been greatly reduced for remote working.

Modern workflow

A walking meeting does not always have to be in person. With the advances in modern technology and the introduction of new communication methods such as teams, slack and skype, meetings and conferencing can be done on the go.

Encourage both yourself, and the person on the other end of the call to head outdoors and complete your meetings as a walking meeting. This can include heading into the local area or to the nearest coffee shop. Any change of environment and getting there on foot can lead to many physical and mental improvements in wellbeing.