Training during working hours - the new black?
Danish adults spend many hours of their waking hours at work, and changes in our work tasks and work environment mean that many people spend more and more of their working hours sitting in front of a screen. For many Danes, daily work is therefore becoming an essential element of an inactive lifestyle that increases the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and early death.
At the same time, sedentary work often causes tension in the neck/shoulder area, and neck pain is much more common than in other types of work. For example, around one in two Danes with an office job have experienced neck pain and reduced function due to pain in the last year. For businesses, the costs of neck pain and other musculoskeletal pain are significant. They pay for sick leave, reduced production and errors at work, while society pays for healthcare costs for diagnosis, treatment and the cost of long-term sick leave.
More physical activity
It is estimated that inactive lifestyles cause over one million deaths in Europe every year. This has prompted experts to sound the alarm and recommend more physical activity in daily activities, such as during the working day. More and more companies are showing interest in offering workplace exercise, and research projects show that workplace exercise works. It reduces muscle and joint pain (especially neck pain improves significantly), benefits the cardiovascular system, and increases mental health and well-being, depending on the type of training or exercises performed. Some studies also show that targeted workplace training can increase productivity and reduce absenteeism, which are strong arguments for managers to introduce training.
Targeted training for the individual
However, it takes more than just offering employees a gym or setting up a running club. These types of services are often only used for a short period of time and by employees who are already physically active. This means that you are not reaching the employees who would benefit most from exercise. The greatest benefit comes when training is planned in the context of work and together with colleagues. The training can be very different - everything from strength training, exercise bikes and training with elastic bands to balance exercises and Zumba. But the greatest effect is achieved when the training is targeted to the individual employee's needs, and of course, the greatest benefit is only achieved if the participants actually exercise. It is therefore important that management supports the initiative by, among other things, prioritizing and organizing work tasks so that it is possible for employees to participate in the training.
Exercise during working hours, on the other hand, means that the workplace is no longer a place where people only go to work, but a place where they exercise and engage in other types of health promotion. It also means that the boundaries between activities that were previously either during leisure time or during working hours are becoming more blurred. This raises questions about whether exercise is perceived as an offer or a compulsion, and about the limits of what an employer can demand of an employee. Can and should all employees train during working hours, and should they also train in their free time? And how to deal with situations where the employee does not want to exercise? The workplaces of the future will focus on these questions, as opinions on workplace responsibilities and rights are divided.
Health culture
As in so many other contexts, training during working hours is not a quick or easy solution for the company, and it does not replace the need for good ergonomics. There is a clear link between the management culture, the organization, the organization of work and the company's culture of health. To succeed in engaging employees and influencing their health, it is necessary to offer several different types of training, targeting it specifically to the wishes and needs of individual employees. Finally, involving employees in all aspects of planning is central to the implementation of health promotion measures. At the same time, a keyword for the workplaces of the future will be variation in work tasks and physical strain at work according to the motto "not too little and not too much". This requires both a focus on the individual employee and the courage to look at the entire organization of functions and agreements, so that there is variety in the work and time and space for joint targeted training.
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