Workers spend up to 60% of waking hours at work and an estimated 40 per cent of people do not exercise enough, according to Public Health England. This has ramifications on businesses with increased levels of staff absence and lower levels of productivity due to 140 million working days lost to sickness each year costing UK businesses £14billion.
The importance of workplace health and wellbeing has been illustrated in the number of workplaces that invested in the wellbeing of their employees and taken part in Business Games events as part of the Workplace Challenge this summer.
From Kent to Norfolk and Birmingham to Durham, over 100 teams from workplaces across the country have pulled on their trainers to try a range activities and compete for fun to be crowned the champions for their region.
Active Norfolk led the way with the ninth annual Fit4Work Corporate Games on Friday June 9 at the UEA Sportspark. The Fit4Work Corporate Games, sponsored by Sportspark and Pushing Ahead, saw 44 teams from private, public and third sector organisations in Norfolk battle it out in a range of sports including wheelchair basketball, archery, gymnastics and golf. The 'Back to School Games' were especially popular, with participants reliving their school days with a sack race, egg and spoon race and a space hopper relay.
July was a busy month for inter workplace fun with four County Sports Partnerships including Sport Birmingham, Kent Sport, Northamptonshire Sport and Leap delivering some hugely successful events on July 5th, 7th, 13th and 14th respectively.
The Sport Birmingham Business Games brought together company teams from workplaces across Birmingham to the annual multisport festival; the sports networking event of the year, providing the opportunity for workplaces to compete in various team activities in a fun and informal environment. The Business Games is Sport Birmingham’s exciting flagship event designed to get workplaces enjoying being healthy and active after work, whilst providing a fun and friendly environment in which to build relationships and informally network. Teams from across the city represented their businesses and took part in an evening of fun team games and individual sporting challenges.
16 Workplace Teams descended on Strood Sports Centre to battle it out to see who will be crowned the 2017 Kent & Medway Business Games Champions. Despite the rising temperatures on one of the hottest days of the year, the Teams played weird and wonderful adapted versions of sports such as stoolball, pickleball, sitting volleyball, dodgeball and walking football. Individuals also took on the ever popular Challenge Zone with a bike, rowing and archery challenge.
Organised by Kent Sport, in partnership with Medway Sport, and sponsored by Wellbeing People, the event is now in its third year offering an afternoon of fun activities, team building and healthy competition. The event is an opportunity for colleagues to come together, represent their workplace, try new sports, get active and have some fun outside the office.
Kevin Day, Kent Sport Director stated:
"Over the last two years, the event has proved to be a great platform to promote sport and physical activity to a wide range of businesses. This year was no different. Working with Wellbeing People and Medway Sport the event is going from strength to strength, inspiring people to be more active in and outside the workplace".
18 teams from businesses and workplaces across Northamptonshire battled it out in the 4th edition of theNorthamptonshire Sport Business Games held at Moulton College. This year's event sold out in just under three days! A now established workplace event in the calendar of many businesses across Northamptonshire, 140 participants took part in an extremely competitive event. Similar to previous years we had a number of new workplaces taking part with teams such as First For Wellbeing, East Northamptonshire Council and Decathlon coming from all over the county to take part. We also had some loyal returnees to the Business Games with Park Inn competing for the third year in a row and Woodland View Primary and Northampton Leisure Trust providing teams for a second year.
Each team, made up of 8 players, sported a different colour t-shirt to represent their business and took part in five different sports including Hockey, Walking Football, Tennis, Archery and Handball. Teams rotated around all the sports, getting to play against different opposition each time.
After an evening of heated competition and great sportsmanship, all their efforts were rewarded with a mouth-watering hog roast prior to the unveiling of the results. This year's competition was the most nail biting we've seen in Northamptonshire as 2 points separated the fantastic efforts of the top 5 teams!
Nine teams stepped out of their offices on Friday 14th July for an afternoon of team building, challenges and all round fun at theLeap Business Games. At the event, held in Milton Keynes as part of MK50 celebrations, employees from businesses across Bucks and Milton Keynes challenged their minds and bodies, battling it out to be crowned champions.
The teams competed in a variety of zones where teamwork, logic and communication were key. The zones included inflatable football, Discgolf and a twist on a school sports day. After the teams navigated each zone, they all took to the bootcamp challenge inflatable for the finale. Following a tightly run race, Places for People – represented by Wycombe Leisure Centre, were crowned the overall event winners.
Teams also showed their creativity in a photo competition, the overall winners were 1Life with their human bicycle.
Finally, after all their efforts, teams were rewarded with a BBQ, drink and chance to recap their moments of glory.
On Friday 8th September, twenty three teams from workplaces across Suffolk took part in the fourth annual Suffolk Workplace Games event that was held at Ipswich Sports Centre. Over 200 business individuals participated in a fun day of sporting activity including Walking Football, Volleyball, Softball, Clay Pigeon Archery and an array of traditional sports day activities. Despite the wet weather everyone seemed to have a great time and excellent teamwork and camaraderie didn't go unnoticed!
The Suffolk Workplace Games is a key annual event for Suffolk Sport reaching out to businesses to get active and is part of the national initiative by the Workplace Challenge, backed by Sport England and the British Heart Foundation, seeking to inspire businesses and encourage workers to get active in and around the working day.
On 15th September 5 workplaces joined The County Durham Workplace Games; a multi sport competition which gives local organisations the chance to compete in a number of different sporting challenges throughout the event. The competition is a great opportunity for team building, improving office morale and networking with local like minded organisations. The nature of the event means it is also a great way to promote health and wellbeing in the workplace, encouraging employees to try out new sports and get more active. The Durham Federation were crowned the 2017 winners after a fantastic evening of fun and (workplace) games.
Lee Mason, Chief Executive, County Sports Partnership Network said,
“Tackling inactivity in the workplace is a complex issue and these events show that the simplicity of fun team activities can impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals but also wider outcomes in terms of boosting team spirit and contributing towards productive businesses.”
It’s true that the best things come to those who wait and workplaces across Merseyside can now look forward to their opportunity to join in the team fun with the Merseyside Business Games organised by MSP on the evening of Thursday 2ndNovember. The evening consists of teams (five to seven people per team) taking part in a variety of exciting beginner-level sports and activities, scoring points for their team in a bid to become the most active organisation in Merseyside! Businesses of all shapes and sizes attend the event, and no previous experience of sport or level of fitness is required for individuals to take part.
Danny Woodworth from MSP said,
“This event is a great way for staff to come together to bond with their colleagues and network with other organisations. Attendees from last year told us that they thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a variety of activities, learning top-tips to be more active to improve their health and wellbeing.”
For more active inspiration check out the Workplace Challenge website where you can get involved in online challenges, find out about activities and events and learn more about how your workplace can follow the example set by those who have joined the Business Games events this summer.
NOTES TO EDITOR:
Workplace Challenge
- Workplace Challenge’s activity tracking platform is a free online facility available through www.workplacechallenge.org.uk that enables individuals and workplaces to log all of their physical activity, and easily compare activity levels to other participating individuals and organisations.
- Active loggers will be able to see a variety of stats including distance travelled, calories burned, CO2 saved and progress against the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity per week using a targets bar. It's also possible to set personal targets in 2015 (linked to fundraising if you wish) and create your ‘circles’ to compare your progress against friends and colleagues. All these features and more are available from your dashboard.
- A minimum of three registered employees are required for a workplace to appear in a leader board and people can also track their own individual progress locally and nationally.
- County Sports Partnerships across England locally manage the online platform for their community, ensuring that there are challenges, activities and competitions available offline to encourage people to stay active.
- Workplace Challenge is supported by Sport England through the Get Healthy Get Active fund.
CSP Network
- The CSP Network represents 44 local County Sports Partnership teams across the country.
- Collectively, they contribute to the health of the nation by helping local partners, organisations and deliverers to promote the benefits of active lifestyles across local communities.
- The CSP Network delivered The Community Games – one of the most successful community campaigns seen in the UK, attracting over 2 million members of the public to come together in local communities to take part in active cultural events inspired by London 2012.
