The GM Daily Mile Toolkit: Employers & Workplaces

1. Planning a Workplace GM Daily Mile Campaign

The GM Walking  7 Steps to Success Guide  will help you to achieve your vision. It includes further information, tips and useful links on the following 7 steps; 

1. Setting aims, outcomes & targets– helping you to focus your energies on the right things.
2. Consulting with others– finding out what colleagues want, when and how.
3. Sharing the health & wellbeing benefits– supporting colleagues to recognise the benefits to their wellbeing. (also see Section 2 Sharing the Health & Wellbeing Benefits).
4. Planning– Working Out a Mile  or help you to Planning a Walking Route to suit your workplace needs.
5. Promoting– raising awareness in creative ways to extend your reach (also see  Section 3 Promoting a GM Daily Mile Walk).
6. Goal Setting & Challenges – motivating walkers through goal setting and challenges (team/individual).
7. Sustaining– helping walkers maintain their walking habits Find ways to encourage walkers to attend regularly- continue to share benefits of a GM Daily Mile. Try introducing a monthly challenge or use the trackers and remember some people love to celebrate success. (also see Section 5 Motivating Colleagues).

There are many free Apps and websites to help you  Work Out a Mile  or help you to Planning a Walking Route  if you are looking for support or inspiration. These downloads include the direct links you will need.  The Go Jauntly app has some walks specific to Greater Manchester- check it out here.

If necessary refer to your your organisation’s health & safety policy.

2. Sharing the Health & Wellbeing Benefits

One way to encourage walking is to share the positive outcomes of walking a GM Daily Mile. Remember it only takes about 20 minutes to walk a mile or is about 2000 steps, walking supports physical, emotional & mental wellbeing too.

Walking supports each of the Five Ways to Wellbeing, developed by the New Economics Foundation (2008) and used by many local, regional and national community & health organisations across the UK.

The five evidenced-based actions designed to improve personal wellbeing are;

• Connect- building connections with others can support and enrich you every day.
• Keep Learning- learning something or visiting somewhere new can increase your confidence and your self-esteem. 
• Be Active- moving  helps to release feel good hormones which support your overall wellbeing.
• Give-giving time or words to others is proven to support wellbeing.  
• Take Notice- enjoying the moment, being aware of the here and now and noticing the world around you can help you appreciate what matters. 

Let’s see how walking can can support each of these.

How a GM Daily Mile supports The Five Ways to Wellbeing

3. Promoting a GM Daily Mile Walk

Using a combination of marketing methods will increase your reach, especially where staff work in different roles, across different departments, at various times of the day/night and those working from home.

Getting the messaging right

• Make sure your message(s) resonate with your target audience. i.e. ‘It’s only 20 minutes’ ‘Walking to health’ ‘Let’s walk and talk’ ‘’Netwalking the new networking’
• Remember, less is more when it comes to messaging.
• Focus on the target group and how a GM Daily Mile will benefit them. Sharing the ‘why’ can be crucial for buy-in. Use the poster and flier templates to share your messages
• You have approximately three seconds to capture your audience’s attention, keep your message interesting and succinct.
• Using hashtags # can work really well. i.e. #walk #social #walkandchat #ActiveWorkplaces #GMDailyMile

Choosing the sweet spots to market to your colleagues. 

• Customise the poster and flyer templates and display around the workplace; on notice boards, in toilets, reception, kitchen, cafeteria areas or the water cooler-using a variety of places will increase your reach. There is space for your logo to be added to these downloads.
• Distribute flyers where they will be seen & picked up.
• Use the downloadable noticeboard headers  and Hashtags downloads to create an eye catching GM Daily Mile zone on workplace noticeboards.
• Display the At a Glance poster and Five Ways to Wellbeing poster downloads to share the ‘Why Walk?’ messages.
• Display a GM Daily Mile walk start sign in the lead up to a walk. Promoting where and when the walk will take place.
• Encourage the Management Team to lead by example by walking a GM Daily Mile & recognising staff engagement.
• Include articles about your the GM Daily Mile plans in workplace newsletters/magazines.
• Share plans with HR to explore opportunities to share key messages with employees across the organisation where possible. This can be especially true of those home-based workers who may not see the messaging displayed in the workplace.
• Consider GM Daily Mile branded resources to support staff e.g. branded umbrellas, rain proof ponchos for wet weather walking.
• Share plans via Facebook, Twitter or group WhatsApp where appropriate.
• Decide how you will launch the walking group/opportunity.

4. Walking with Others 

Spending time with others is known to boost your health & wellbeing. The workplace can provide a great range of opportunities for colleagues to connect through a GM Daily Mile. These may include;

• Colleagues considering a Daily Mile as an alternative to workplace based meetings.
• An organised walk at lunchtime, before or after work supporting colleagues who may prefer walking with others more informally. 
• Departments liaising & timetabling walks for colleagues from different teams/work streams/  to network and engage, supporting communication across the business which may not otherwise exist.
• Raising awareness of the benefits of walking for health, happiness and productivity, motivating colleagues to choose to walk to or from work or with a colleague.
• Setting goals as a group or team can be highly motivating. Motivational tools can help maximise engagement and sustain involvement (also see Motivating Colleagues below).
• Remember to include those staff working from home temporarily or permanently, include them in team challenges and goal setting. Also share the Toolkit for Individuals, Families & friends  for those wishing to walk nearer home.
• Identify colleagues as Active Workplace Champions  or encourage existing Wellbeing Ambassadors to include the promotion of the GM Daily Mile across the workplace.
• Check out the GM Daily Mile Monthly Challenge Calendar for ideas to encourage walking with others.

5. Motivating Colleagues

The following ideas and tools are designed to help motivate your colleagues to participate in a GM Daily Mile and develop new habits of regular walking.

• Finding inspiration & setting bite sized goals
• Rewarding progress
• Making it fun & mixing it up a bit
• Walking with others
• Tracking progress is a great motivator.  Choose what you want to track and print a GM Daily Mile Minute Tracker or a  GM Daily Mile Step Tracker (up to 10,000 steps), or GM Daily Mile Step Tracker (up to 20,000 steps)  to record progress on. Display at  work or at home as an additional motivator.
• A GM Daily Mile Walk Diary  is a great way to monitor progress made and provides a space to record how walking makes us feel too.
• Check out the GM Daily Mile Monthly Challenge Calendar. Full of ideas to encourage colleagues/teams/groups/sites to take on a challenge if they choose to.

6. Celebrating Progress & Success

Remember to celebrate progress. Celebrating winners of challenges can be great but also consider celebrating progress too, such as consistency of walkers, new walkers or those who recruit new walkers. But only if they want the recognition!

• Encourage walkers to consider rewarding themselves and each other with something positive & healthy when they reach their goals.
• Use the GM Daily Mile branded noticeboard to feature successes and/or engagement.’
• Have ‘Walker of the Week/Month’
• Provide a GM Daily Mile Certificate  for walkers, fill in name(s), the challenge participated in, the date and add  your company logo too! 

Be proud, celebrate and continue your good work.

#GMDailyMile