Will you ask your CEO to sign?
Corporate America is at a cultural crossroads. One path leads toward a vibrant, active workforce harnessing the health and intellectual benefits of physical activity; the other toward a sedentary, dreary workforce that mostly just wants to take a nap around 3 pm each day. If you were the CEO or executive director of an organization, which path would you choose?
On September 24, 2013,the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA) announced that Dr. Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), became the 100th CEO to sign a pledge to follow the former path.
The CEO Pledge is a national campaign promoted by NCPPA to encourage every CEO in the United States to recognize physical activity as an important driver of employee health and business performance.
The CEO Pledge reads, as follows:
For the betterment of my company, our employees, their families, and our country, I pledge to improve employee health and wellness by providing resources for physical activity before, during, or after the workday, and to enhance my own health and wellness by engaging in regular physical activity.
The CEO Pledge is for leaders of every kind of organization. The current roster of pledges is wonderfully diverse, ranging from Fortune 500 to nonprofit to emerging small business. It is designed to be flexible enough to meet the challenges of every kind of business model – all it requires is leadership.
“This is an exciting time for the CEO Pledge,” said Jack Groppel, PhD (pictured above), who serves as the national spokesperson for the initiative. “One hundred signatures demonstrate that leaders are recognizing movement as a critical driver of performance, health, and engagement – not only in the workplace, but in the community as well.”
“When corporate leadership is visibly committed to employee health, workplace health programs are more effective and employees are more successful at adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors,” added Jerry Noyce, President and CEO of HERO (and, it should be noted, a signatory to the CEO Pledge). “The CEO Pledge is an ideal way for business leaders to make known their commitment to employee health and to capitalize on the best practices that leading wellness researchers and practitioners have identified.”
You can learn all about the CEO Pledge, including who has signed it, here. You will also find strategies for creating a more active work culture, helpful resources, and an online CEO Pledge enrollment form. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact NCPPA.
Post contributed by IHRSA