By Catherine Arber

Have you ever held a work meeting while walking around the block?

Dr. James Levine, from the Mayo Clinic, claims that sitting is the new smoking. He has stated that health improvements can be found simply by limiting the amount of sitting that you do in the day and generally moving more.  He recommends considering ways to incorporate walking while working, including walking meetings. It’s a concept with lots of benefits and very few costs.

There are the obvious employee benefits related to physical and mental health but there is also a plus side for improved creativity and teamwork as a result of working in a different setting.

In fact, WalkBC/BC Recreation and Parks Association notes a number of employer benefits to walking meetings: improved productivity, fewer insurance and worker compensation claims, reduced absenteeism, decreased accidents, reduced staff turnover, improved staff attitudes towards the organization, and higher staff morale.

The following steps (pun intended) are recommended through Healthy Families BC. When setting up this type of meeting: 

• give advance notice of the meeting style so participants can wear comfortable shoes
• choose a quiet route, limit the number of participants to six so participants can walk two or three abreast
• move people around during the walk to get varied perspectives
• bring a notepad to record key points of the discussion
• be prepared for inclement weather

Start a walking trend at your workplace. Find a willing colleague or two, introduce walking meetings to your team, or actively support them through your organization.  And if you can’t find someone to meet with, take a walk yourself to think through an issue.

Catherine Arber is a Manager of Audit and Review with an independent office of the legislature, the Office of the Merit Commissioner, which provides oversight and insight in BC public service hiring.