If you’ve been driving for hours, you know that you should pull over, get out, and move around. If you’ve been raking leaves for an hour, you need to stretch. If you’ve been staring at a screen for hours, shouldn’t you give your eyes a break? If your back aches just thinking about shoveling snow, maybe a bit of strength training is in order. Many day-to-day aches and pains arise because we are not taking care of ourselves, at home or at work. How can employers help?
Earlier this year, we created an amazing package of stretch, strength, balance, mobility and vision activities, which we called “Move-it”. Clients had asked for help with stretching programs, and we felt strongly that stretching was not enough. We believe that strength, mobility, balance, and vision exercises could also benefit most people. The idea was to create a library of activities that could be sprinkled throughout the day, performed in very short time periods, and not require props or floor work: a well-rounded set of workplace-appropriate, quick activities.
We also created hands-on training for program champions, so they really buy into and understand how the concept of “microbreaks” works. It’s two hours of mini-experiments that demonstrate how each of the five components affects us.
I will be talking about this project, of which I’m quite proud, at the Applied Ergonomics conference in March.
I’ve learned that a package like this is tough to market; it has a bit of an identity crisis.
- It’s not “stretching” although it includes stretching.
- It’s not “strengthening” although it includes that too.
- It’s sometimes called “Microbreaks”, but that word has a “non-productive” connotation.
It’s really the perfect thing for a company that wants to gently but persistently encourage employees to mix it up a bit – stretch if they’ve been in one position for a long time, do something physical if they’ve been sitting, and get their bodies moving in different ways than their jobs require. What hashtags do I need for that? 😊
We’ve distributed a few versions of the package. But we have not yet run a client pilot project to evaluate how the program affects comfort, productivity, quality, or job satisfaction. And I would very, very much like to do that before the conference in March.
If you’re considering a “stretching” program, here’s a chance to try our program out at no charge. Here’s what would be involved:
- Get 20+ volunteers.
- Get the volunteers to complete baseline (google) surveys.
- Create a distribution and prompt plan.
- Run the pilot (4-6 weeks, at least 2 microbreaks per shift).
- Get the volunteers to complete follow-up surveys. (We need at least 20 baseline and 20 follow-up surveys.)
- Receive a report from us, about how the program performed. Share it with your managers!
- Decide whether to purchase the package for 50% off our regular price (or remove the program from your devices and storage).
Don’t delay – we have only a few openings for “free” pilot programs, and they need to be completed before the end of February. Contact Carrie@TaylordErgo.com
FAQs:
What do you mean by “program”?
The program is essentially 50+ slides and an intro package. You can run the “program” in whatever way works at your organization. When we tried it here at Taylor’d Ergo, we set up MSTeams reminders with an image attached, so everyone on our team was prompted at certain times of the day to do the activity. You can display them on a digital board, print them and post them, email them, have a champion lead them in-person, or distribute in any way that works for you.
Will these “microbreaks” take time away from work?
The activities were meant to be done in seconds, and many of them can be done while the participant continues to work.
Will the program work without the champion training?
We think the training is a powerful way to “prove” that the 5 components of the Move-it program are effective. But you can absolutely deploy the program without the training.
Where can I get more information?
– A free webinar, describing how we developed the program