Booster Breaks: An Easy-to-Implement Workplace Policy Designed to Improve Employee Health, Increase Productivity, and Lower Health Care Costs

Abstract

Workplace stress and physical inactivity are major health problems. To combat them, Booster Breaks have been proposed, which represent a new way of thinking about work breaks. This article introduces a workplace program and policy to improve employee health and productivity and lower healthcare costs by implementing Booster Breaks. This innovation uses break times to promote health and is based on the Booster Break ripple effects model, whose levels, effects, and implications are described herein. A Booster Break program can transform workplace policies to improve organizational morale and lower health care costs with favorable ripple effects for society.

KEYWORDS:

• employee health
• health promotion
• healthcare costs
• work breaks
• work sites

This article was supported in part by a National Institutes of Health grant, number 5R03NR10291-2. The author gratefully acknowledges the substantive guidance on revisions to the article by Stephen Palmer, PhD, ELS, and Karen L. Pepkin, MA. Also, the article received editorial assistance from Stephen Palmer, PhD, ELS.