Workplace Physical Activity Programs: Assessment Guide
What Do You Want to Achieve?
Consider why you’re evaluating and what your evaluation is going to measure.
If you’re trying to learn whether initiative has been successful, see if you stuck to your mission statement and met your objectives and goals.
If you do not have a mission statement or objectives and goals, decide with management and your employee Employee Wellness Committee how your organization will track success.
For example, you can track success by changes in:
• Physical measures (e.g., strength, flexibility, waist circumference of employees).
• Psychological measures (e.g., employee morale, satisfaction levels, stress levels).
• Productivity measures (e.g., decline in absenteeism rates, increased employee work rate).
Thinking About employees
If you’re thinking of making improvements to the initiative, consider whether the initiative is still relevant and appropriate for employees. Find out if there are any barriers to participation in the program or to participation in physical exercise during the workday.
As employees are the ones participating in the program, it’s significant to give them a chance to support feedback on the physical exercise initiative.
Choosing an Assessment Method
Decide on your evaluation method. Both measurable results (e.g., absenteeism rates or questionnaire responses) and descriptive results (e.g., one-on-one interviews or focus groups) can be used to evaluate. The method you choose will depend on the time and funding available and what you want to measure.
Deciding How to Do the Assessment
Plan when and where you will do your evaluation (and who will be evaluated). For more information, read the “Types of Evaluations” section on this website.
You might want to pilot test your evaluation (e.g., with members of the Employee Wellness Committee) before sending it out to employees. The employee Employee Wellness Committee might also wish to evaluate the initiative’s planning process.
Doing the Assessment
• Compare your results to baseline information (i.e., evaluation results from before the launch of your initiative). If you do not have this information, save your evaluation results to compare with later results. You can also look at other information you may have, such as employee satisfaction survey results.
• Analyze and share meaningful and simple-to-know results with management and employees.
• Assessment results can be used to improve the current physical exercise program and/or to cultivate new initiatives in future.
