In a survey of 250 business leaders in London, managers in finance came out on top when valuing fitness, with 58% of decision makers seeing employee fitness as ‘very important’. Nearly 80% of them claim they had taken measures to improve the physical health of their employees.
Retail was a long way off second, with 28% of business leaders regarding the fitness of their workers as a top priority. A long way down the list was construction, with just 16% of managers seeing fitness on the building site as ‘very important’.
Not only did leaders in finance highly value the fitness of their employees, but they also saw it as valuable to their performance at work. Almost 90% of them saw fitness as ‘important’ to business performance when it came to working with money.
The real winner in the survey was fitness in general. A majority of business leaders surveyed said they had taken measures to improve the fitness of their employees (70%) while nearly 80% said they were more likely to work with a business that supports the physical and mental fitness of their employees.
Surprisingly, the survey also found that London’s business leaders saw their physical fitness and mental wellbeing improve over the pandemic. Six out of ten said their exercise levels had increased while a minority (29%) said working from home had negatively impacted the mental health of their organisation.
The survey is part of the ‘Fit to Deliver,’ campaign being carried out by JogPost, a leaflet distribution company whose team carry out their work by jogging.
The campaign is being supported by Mike Hind MBE, crowned ‘Best Personal Trainer in the UK’ four times, who says he wasn’t at all surprised by the results:
“I work with boxers and Premier League footballers, but also top business leaders who have recognised both the mental and physical benefits of being in top shape.
“‘I’ve joined JogPost’s ‘Fit to Deliver’ campaign because I want the physical and mental fitness of employees to be a top priority for their managers. If you don’t think your company is doing enough, workers should be able to approach their boss and have a conversation about ways they can improve. At present, I don’t think that is happening enough.”
Speaking about the results, JogPost CEO and Dragon’s Den survivor JJ Harding said: “Being one of the only companies in London that have a jogging workforce, we have long regarded ourselves as one of the fittest companies in the capital. Surprisingly, we may have to pay a visit to the City if we want to meet our competitors!
“Importantly, we’re pleased to see business leaders recognise the link between physical fitness and mental wellbeing at work. This is an important part of our campaign and we’re keen to promote this. We want to see more businesses making meaningful efforts to improve the physical fitness of their employees.”
