Thesis Chapter 1 Sample | Dissertation Introduction Sample

Employee Wellness and Participation in an Onsite Workplace Gym

Student’s Name

Course

Professor (Tutor)

The Name of the School (University)

City and State

Date

Download the Full Dissertation Sample (PDF)

Executive Summary

The study focuses on how organizations tend to promote their employees’ health and wellness by encouraging them to engage in physical activities at work. Most companies use facilities such as gyms as a way of promoting wellness. Furthermore, this pilot study investigates the employees’ willingness to participate in wellness programs. The knowledge from this study will help businesses understand their employees better and come up with wellness initiatives that cut across the workers. A literature review on the topic provided a foundation for this research project. This project moves on from the literature review to the study’s methodology section, addressing the research design of the pilot study before conducting the main study. The following report will explain the selection of the research topic, the research design specifically for designing a pilot study on the chosen research topic, the philosophical basis for the study, and the related methods for carrying out the study. In addition, the study will address ethical considerations.

1.0 Introduction

This pilot study investigates employee wellness by examining the willingness of employees to participate in wellness organizational programs initiated to promote the health and wellness of employees. The program in this study considers an on-site workplace gym because most organizations invest in and use gym facilities to boost employees’ fitness through exercises, enhancing employees’ wellness while at work. The study will investigate why employees participate or do not participate in the wellness program at the on-site workplace gym.

It has become a norm for organizations to adopt a work-based wellness program to promote employees’ health. The workplace presents an opportunity for successfully promoting employee health and well-being, which leads to improving work-related outcomes for those employees who are a captive audience of such programs. As such, businesses take a focused approach to this challenge of adopting a work-based wellness program. However, there is evidence of low participation rates, with approximately half of the workforce not participating in organizational wellness initiatives. Besides, only a quarter of employees consistently use an on-site workplace gym. For this reason, the issue of promoting employee health and wellness through the addition of an on-site workplace gym may not be an effective solution for increasing employees’ physical activity and improving their health.

Although some employees may request the installation of an on-site workplace gym, employees may have little interest in participating in the gym’s physical activities. Despite being linked to positive work-related outcomes, this may not always be the case, and not all employees will be willing to participate, demonstrating a more complex issue. Therefore, a challenge arises for organizations considering investing in an on-site workplace gym to motivate employee participation. 

Participation is crucial for both employees and employers to realize the benefits of improvements in employee wellness or work-related outcomes. However, there is limited research exploring employees’ reasons for participation or non-participation in organizational wellness programs and the contributing factors. Only one study, Edmunds et al. (2013), addresses employees’ reasons for non-participation. As a result, this leaves a gap in the literature on the topic. As the issue presented in this study is more complex, it brings about the need for further exploration into the reasons contributing to employee participation or non-participation in organizational wellness programs such as the onsite workplace gym. 

The literature review expounds previous information on the researcher’s interest in employee wellness and exercises to promote employee health. The current pilot project will explore this topic further to fill the gap in the literature. The study will provide crucial information that organizations looking to invest in an on-site workplace gym can use to understand employees’ participation in such a program, and to be in a better position to make investment decisions on such an organizational wellness program. Through information provided by this study, businesses and organizations can develop wellness initiatives that engage most of their employees. The following section presents the research question addressed by the pilot study.

1.1 Research Question

While planning the pilot study and in discussion with supervision, it is essential to further refine the research question, aims, and objectives after the initial question used during the literature review. The refined research question formulated by the researcher that will guide the pilot study is as follows:

What are the main reasons for employee participation or non-participation in an on-site workplace gym?

1.2 Aims and Objectives

The pilot study mainly investigates why employees participate or do not participate in an on-site workplace gym as an organizational employee wellness program.

The following set of objectives will assist in achieving the research aims:

• Establish the main reasons for employee participation and non-participation in the on-site workplace gym.
• To investigate the employees’ perspectives regarding the benefits of participation or non-participation in an on-site workplace gym.
• To establish the barriers that hinder the participation of employees in an on-site workplace gym.
• To examine the employees’ perspectives on organization support for participating in the onsite workplace gym.
• To examine whether participation or non-participation has impacted their physical wellness.
• To examine whether participation or non-participation has impacted their psychological wellness.
• To examine whether participation or non-participation has impacted their work-related outcomes.

Proceed to the Next Page