Purpose: To review enrollment strategies, participation barriers, and program reach of a large, 2-year workplace intervention targeting sedentary behavior.
Approach: Cross-sectional, retrospective review.
Setting: Twenty-four worksites balanced across academic, industry, and government sectors in Minneapolis/Saint Paul (Minnesota) and Phoenix (Arizona) regions.
Participants: Full-time (≥30+ h/wk), sedentary office workers.
Methods: Reach was calculated as the proportion of eligible employees who enrolled in the intervention ([N enrolled/(proportion of eligible employees × N total employees)] × 100). Mean (1 standard deviation) and median worksite sizes were calculated at each enrollment step. Participation barriers and modifications were recorded by the research team. A survey was sent to a subset of nonparticipants (N = 57), and thematic analyses were conducted to examine reasons for nonparticipation, positive impacts, and negative experiences.
Results: Employer reach was 65% (56 worksites invited to participate; 66% eligible of 56 responses; 24 enrolled). Employee reach was 58% (1317 invited to participate, 83% eligible of 906 responses; 632 enrolled). Postrandomization, on average, 59% (15%) of the worksites participated. Eighteen modifications were developed to overcome participant-, context-, and research-related participation barriers.
Conclusion: A high proportion of worksites and employees approached to participate in a sedentary behavior reduction intervention engaged in the study. Interventions that provide flexible enrollment, graded participant engagement options, and adopt a participant-centered approach may facilitate workplace intervention success.
Keywords: employee engagement; participation barriers; reach; sedentary behavior; workplace.