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A recent article at Quartz spells out the very real dangers of too much sitting: elevated risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Even worse is the news that exercising won’t compensate for the risks of too much sitting. The good news is that regularly interrupting your sitting with bursts of moving can help. Recommended are walking meetings, standing desks, and that old favourite: taking the stairs wherever possible!

What can you do to encourage more movement and less sitting in your workplace ?

Is safety undervalued at your workplace? If so, why? Perhaps people aren’t sure how to follow through on safety recommendations? Maybe they lack a solid understanding of what is really involved in getting a safety system up and running, or maybe everyone is just “too busy”.

Whatever the reason, workplace safety requires motivated leaders to inspire their staff so that safety becomes a normal part of the work day. In some workplaces the hazards are high-risk so safety is overlaid into all aspects of the job. In other workplaces, the hazards to be found are more common place and relatively easy to manage. Whatever type of workplace you work in, ask yourself if the workers are aware of safety issues, if they are actively engaged in the safety process and then whether they are empowered to act.

Proactive Health and Safety is able to help create the safety awareness at your workplace, engage workers to participate in safety and to take the necessary action so that safety becomes a normal part of everyone’s day.

Safe Work Australia recently launched a new initiative – the Heads up campaign, to encourage Australian businesses to engage with mental health issues in their workplaces.

The Heads Up campaign launched last month is a joint initiative by beyondblue and the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance, of which Safe Work Australia is a founding member.

The Heads up website has lots of excellent resources to help businesses take action to build mentally healthy workplaces.