100 years running: The need to understand why employee physical activity benefits organizations

The last century has seen an evolution regarding perspectives on employee physical activity, from early investigators expressing reservations about physically taxing work (Mayo, 1924) to researchers today arguing that increasing physical demands of work constitutes a public health necessity (Straker & Mathiassen, 2009). The latter concern is well founded, given the increasingly sedentary nature of work and its negative impact on health (Church et al., 2011). In response, 51% of US employers with 50 or more employees now offer wellness programs, with 55% of these employers offering fitness programs (Mattke et al., 2013) that encourage employees to be more active by providing on-the-clock time to engage in physical activity and/or resources to encourage physical activity when not at work (e.g., gym memberships). Although such programs offer intuitive health advantages, they have been developed using insights from outside the management community, providing little clarity around why physical activity yields organizationally relevant outcomes. This oversight has led to a scientist-practitioner gap, wherein organizations continue to develop policies that promote more active workplaces, while organizational scientists fail to keep pace with research to validate such efforts. In light of these limitations, the time has come to dig deeper to understand the linkages between physical activity and organizationally relevant outcomes. In this Incubator, we clarify the construct of employee physical activity, identify pathways through which it yields benefits, and highlight potential downsides to physical activity initiatives.

Employee Physical Activity

Physical activity is “bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure” (Caspersen, Powell, & Christenson, 1985, p. 126). Conceptualizations of physical activity encompass one or more of the following exercise characteristics: (1) mode (i.e., whether activity is aerobic or non-aerobic), (2) dose (i.e., duration and frequency of physical activity), and (3) intensity (i.e., energy expended), which is typically categorized as light (i.e., slow walking), moderate (i.e., brisk walking), or vigorous (i.e., jogging) (American College of Sports Medicine, 2014; Netz, Wu, Becker, & Tenenbaum, 2005). Determinations of physical activity intensity are often made by estimating metabolic equivalent (MET) values, with one MET reflecting energy expenditure at rest (3.5 mL/kg/minute) and activities categorized by the number of times above this resting value an individual must expend energy to perform an activity (e.g., slow walking MET = 2.8, brisk walking MET = 4.3, and jogging MET = 7.0; Ainsworth et al., 2011).

Synthesizing this information, we conceptualize employee physical activity as a construct reflecting worker engagement in physical activity on or off the job. Further, we propose that this construct is composed of the facets of exercise mode, dose, and intensity. Importantly, we do not view these facets as isomorphic. Rather, employee preferences and past physical activity behaviors may alter the relative importance of each facet. For example, an inexperienced exerciser may benefit from an intervention that is lower in intensity but higher in dose; a triathlete may be better served by lower duration, higher intensity exercise. A faceted approach thus allows for greater integration of temporal dynamics into the study of employee physical activity, as (1) the implications of each facet for organizationally relevant outcomes can be investigated over short-term and long-term time frames, and (2) interventions can be designed to evolve as fitness levels improve.

Measurement

In the last century, pioneers in the field of applied psychology (e.g., Hersey, 1932; Pennock, 1930; Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1941; Smith, 1953) utilized a variety of techniques (e.g., observations, interviews, and objective measures of productivity) and research designs (e.g., experimental and non-experimental longitudinal field studies) to assess indicators of employee physical activity (e.g., effort, exertion, rest, fatigue, and physical labor). Building on this tradition, contemporary scholars have assessed physical activity using a number of measures, with a common technique being to calculate MET values over a given time interval (e.g., Kouvonen et al., 2005), an approach akin to the production curves described by Smith (1953) and Roethlisberger and Dickson (1941). However, given the multifaceted nature of employee physical activity, solely considering MET values over time may obscure unique effects of individual physical activity facets. To allow for a greater consideration of mechanisms, we recommend distinguishing between and accounting for the nature of physical activities performed (exercise mode), time engaged in physical activities (exercise dose), and intensity of physical activities (over the time frame of interest or during a discrete bout of exercise; exercise intensity). Moreover, given that physical activity may vary day-to-day (e.g., because of work demands), week-to-week (e.g., because of weekly deadlines), and month-to-month (e.g., because of New Year's resolutions), temporal considerations are salient for physical activity measurement. Thus, multifaceted assessments with repeated measures are ideal for evaluating benefits of employee physical activity.

Fortunately, a number of methods can be used to capture physical activity data. As a simple solution, scholars can collect self-reported data measuring physical activity facets in general, or on a daily basis if conducting intra-individual work. Additionally, various technologies (e.g., FitBit^®) provide monitors that calculate active minutes (exercise dose) and heart rate (exercise intensity). Such technology can also provide insight into exercise mode (e.g., stairs climbed), but self-reports are likely necessary to capture specifics of pursued physical activities. We also recommend that researchers consider time-scale issues (e.g., minute-to-minute versus a daily aggregate) when using objective trackers to ensure that research questions and theory align with the data.

Physical Activity Outcomes

To advance understanding of employee physical activity, we propose that researchers consider the physiological, affective, and cognitive pathways through which physical activity yields benefits. Physical activity has been proposed to yield health and well-being improvements by raising body temperature, triggering antidepressant hormones, and increasing endorphin secretion (Paluska & Schwenk, 2000). These physiological changes may allow employees to experience their work in a more positive manner through improvements in physiological health. Moreover, at the organizational level, improved physiological responding may help curtail costs associated with illness. Physical activity has also been proposed to distract individuals from depressing or negative thoughts, while also improving mood (Bakker, Demerouti, Oerlemans, & Sonnentag, 2013). Such affective changes may yield well-being and performance improvements by increasing resources via broaden-and-build mechanisms resultant from positive emotional experiences (Fredrickson, 2001). Cognitively, physical activity may relate to mastery experiences, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and body image, with these cognitions spilling over to well-being and performance (Bakker et al., 2013). Thus, scholars should consider each pathway simultaneously to understand how physical activity benefits accrue.

Time should also be considered when investigating physical activity outcomes. With regard to the physiological pathway, for example, employees who are new to physical activity will go through an adaptation stage, allowing their body to “settle in” to a new routine. Over time, employees will create a new set point based on metabolic changes, as well as changes to their threshold of what constitutes exertion. Consistent with the allostatic load model (Ganster & Rosen, 2013), this suggests that physical activity may yield short-term benefits via affective and physiological pathways, as well as longer term benefits connected to enhanced cognitions and health. Therefore, researchers should utilize longitudinal designs and track physiological (e.g., BMI and resting heart rate), affective (e.g., mood), and cognitive (e.g., self-efficacy and self-esteem) indicators before physical activity programs begin and over the course of program implementations in order to (1) assess how the effects of physical activity unfold over time and (2) enhance understanding of intervention changes and outcomes.

In addition to time considerations, an open question also remains as to whether interventions should be designed to increase physical activity at work, at home, or in both domains. For example, an office worker may see benefits from increasing physical activity levels at work, while such efforts may be less beneficial or even counterproductive (i.e., overloading) for an employee in a physically taxing job. Yet, employees with physically demanding jobs may benefit from increased physical activity at home, depending on its features and timing (i.e., on non-work days), although these benefits could conceivably be transmitted more through affective and cognitive pathways rather than the physiological pathway. Relatedly, program implementation feasibility remains a concern in determining how to structure physical activity interventions. It may be reasonably easy to implement a low-intensity, high-duration physical activity at work (e.g., under-the-desk bike pedals), but it might be necessary to limit higher intensity, higher duration exercise (e.g., distance running) to contexts outside of the workplace. Thus, attending to the pathways that link physical activity to organizationally relevant outcomes may allow for a more precise examination of when and where employees should be encouraged to engage in physical activity in relation to their individual and occupational characteristics, as well as any work environment constraints.

Boundary Conditions

An implicit assumption is that physical activity programs benefit all employees. Such sentiments should be expressed cautiously, however, as motivation and social comparison processes may place boundaries on the effectiveness of physical activity initiatives. As suggested by self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), employees who engage in physical activity for autonomous purposes (e.g., enjoyment) may see more benefits than employees who pursue physical activity for controlled purposes (e.g., forced participation through organizational mandates; Berry, Mirabito, & Baun, 2010). This creates a paradox for organizations. With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, companies may opt to order participation in biometric screenings, while also implementing programs to encourage physical activity. Although these offerings seem harmless, depending on how employees construe them, they may undermine motivation to pursue physical activity and lead to dissatisfaction among those who are less physically adept. Indeed, biometric screenings and related offerings that are perceived as “forced” by the employer might incite feelings that the employer is being coercive or abusing power (e.g., EEOC vs Honeywell International Inc., 2014), a factor identified by Snow (1923, p. 286) as “perhaps the greatest source of dissatisfaction” among employees.

Consistent with this, research suggests that successful wellness programs tend to favor “carrots, not sticks,” with forced approaches fueling employee distrust (Berry et al., 2010, p. 4). Requirements and incentives tied to physical activity and wellness screenings also invoke privacy concerns (e.g., asking sensitive information not directly tied to the intervention; Singer, 2013) and possible violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which places restrictions on the incentives that can be offered for wellness program participation (Mattke et al., 2013). Taken together, employee perceptions of their own physical activity motives, as well as the motives underlying wellness programs, provide a fruitful avenue for studying a critical boundary condition around benefits of employee physical activity.

In an effort to encourage employee physical activity, corporations are increasingly holding fitness competitions (Halzack, 2013). Although intuitively appealing, such initiatives may undermine their purpose because of social comparisons among competing employees. For example, being overweight has been linked to increased experience of incivility and subsequent work withdrawal (Sliter, Sliter, Withrow, & Jex, 2012). Employees who have their overweight status made salient via these competitions may not only feel more threatened at work, but also may feel excluded by lower weight coworkers who are able to engage in physical activity with ease. These social comparisons may dampen the pathways through which physical activity operates, particularly if comparisons increase negative mood and decrease self-worth. A valuable avenue of research will be to understand the conditions under which such initiatives help or hinder employee wellness, as well as how these programs can be framed to minimize the possibility of social exclusion. For example, reducing competition across units may cause individuals to experience less pressure to keep up with more fit colleagues. Moreover, by encouraging individual, rather than group, goal setting, employees may feel more in control of their physical activity experiences and make fewer social comparisons.

Conclusion

Little is known about the mechanisms and boundary conditions surrounding the employee physical activity construct. We provided a more precise definition of this construct, recommendations for how it should be assessed, and a framework to evaluate processes through which physical activity yields organizationally relevant outcomes. We also sounded a cautionary note against a universally positive view of physical activity programs, suggesting a dark side to the emerging trend of organizational involvement in employee physical activity. We hope this Incubator inspires dynamic, multifaceted investigations of employee physical activity.