A Review of the Importance of Physical Fitness to Company Performance and Productivity

Norihan Abu Hassan Perdana School of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Semarak, 54100 Kuala Lumpur Tel: +6017 3443492 Email: norihanah.kl@utm.my Abstract: The purpose of this study is to illustrate and investigate the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity, by comparing previous researches on this area. This study focuses on the importance of physical fitness and its effect on employee health, performance and productivity in organizations. The number of health promotion programs in workplace settings has continued to grow. Although employers’ rationales vary, health promotion programs may yield economic benefits such as reduced absenteeism, presentism, employee health care costs and employee turnover. The data for the study is collected from various sources namely articles from 1969 to 1999 and 2000 to 2015. The methodology adopted is qualitative and the findings are based on reliable data with respect to the economic impact of worksite physical fitness activity programs. Most, if not all, researches in this field have been performed in developed and highincome countries. This research recommends improvements and further studies on physical fitness on company performance and offers some suggestions for further research.


Introduction
Physical fitness has been gaining considerable attention in industries from both, employers and employees over the last few years. People spend most of their time at the workplace, which is utilized by many to share as well as receive messages of health (Kelly, 2000). Poor employee health means reduced productivity and increased expenses for the employer. This is the main reason why many global organizations are giving serious attention to various health programs or fitness activities (Dursi, 2008). Many organizations have focused on addressing their employees' health aspects, even before anything happens since prevention is better than cure. Organizations usually get aware of the issues via increased large claims and immediately focus on lowering costs instead of enhancing health and promoting better physical and mental wellbeing for the workers. In addition, they have to manage the costs related to productivity loss from the employees who are absent from work.
Employees who are lean as well as active are seen as more productive than the ones who are inactive and overweight. The scientific proof for the effectiveness of workplace physical fitness activities on productivity is irrefutable. The rationale behind the workplace physical programs implementation is transparent, given the job related gains of physical activity as well fitness and the costs of obesity (Selecky, 2007). The idea of the relationship between productivity and physical fitness of an employee needs no justification. It is evident from the thinking that only a physically fit individual can perform more physically demanding tasks at work and withstand workload pressures and over-time. As such, a person who is physically fit can serve better at work and be productive compared to an unfit person (Sharifzadeh, 2013). Employee health promotion programs have resulted in reduced absenteeism and job related injuries. Both of these help employers reduce unwanted expenditures related to HRM. Employees who regularly take part in physical fitness programs at work tend to have less involuntary absenteeism. As such, in every possible way, employee physical fitness programs can physically enhance an individual as well as reduce the extra expenditures undertaken by the organization in managing ill health and lower productivity at work (Wattles and Harris, 1997). Employees who have three or more health related risks show a 30% higher rate of absenteeism and a 38% higher rate of health related expenditures at work. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the condition of being healthy as a state of full mental and physical wellbeing. Considering these aspects, many modern day organizations that are termed as 'Health Conscious Enterprises' have started serious initiatives towards the wellbeing of their employees. They carry out physical fitness programs by being in partnership with their employees on health issues and in preventive care. Healthcare initiatives target to optimize the fitness aspects and not just simply to eliminate the risks. This paradigm shift is visible in the orientation of many enterprises as they strive to be a completely health focused enterprise (Gibbs and Cartwright, 2010). These days, lifestyle diseases are rather common. Unhealthy food habits or unhealthy living style makes many people diabetic, develop hypertension, etc. These disorders can at a later stage turn in to serious ailments related to the heart and so on. As a result, the employees will become unproductive. Such employees will incur more costs in terms of health related expenditure at work with increased absenteeism. Employers are considering to such indirect costs, which can be reduced with a proper fitness program at the workplace. This study is important for companies given the economic impact of workplace physical activity and for the promotion of health and wellness among employees. In doing so, this study describes the evidence for the importance of physical activity and its influence on health-related and work-related outcomes. This will be done through the analysis of published researches from which the evidences will be used by this study to review and investigate the relationship between physical activity and company performance and productivity.

Purpose of Study
The aim of this study is to examine and review the importance of physical fitness for organizational performance as well as productivity. There are 3 objectives that must be achieved. These include, investigating the concept and criteria used to describe physical fitness and company performance and productivity based on theory and previous research and to determine the factors that relate physical fitness to company performance and productivity based on previous research findings. Moreover, it will include investigating researches from 1969 to 2015, which have been conducted on organizational health performance and recommending policies to promote a healthy work-place.

Research Methodology
The qualitative descriptive research approach is used to perform a review of sixty researches on the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity. Data for this study is gathered from journals, reports and articles from 1969 to 2015. Analysis is done on the reviews of sixty researches and their respective findings. The study uses descriptive research to ascertain the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity and to investigate the factors related to this area based on previous research findings. A qualitative descriptive design is the appropriate choice for a qualitative study because the participants could reveal a more detailed understanding of their perspectives on the phenomenon of the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity. The qualitative descriptive approach is ideal for this research as the identified important factors lay the foundation on the experiences of the participants (McGlone et al., 2008). When conducting a qualitative descriptive study, researchers use descriptive validity that describes the phenomenon directly (Sandelowski, 2010). With reference to the case study, the descriptive design enables the researcher to describe the characteristics of workplace recreation and its impact on the wellbeing and performance of employees (Orodho and Kombo, 2002). The importance of physical fitness is evaluated and described by reviewing researches and the ways in which they affect the employees' wellbeing and performance. The use of the descriptive design also enables the researcher to give succinct recommendations to researchers and scholars interested in employee wellbeing at the workplace.
Qualitative data is being re-used in many modern day studies. Thus, data from qualitative studies are archived (Corti and Thompson, 1998;Hammersley and Gomm, 1997;Corti et al., 1995). In addition, the collection of qualitative data is costly in many cases as well as time consuming. The opportunities to conduct a primary research are limited in many studies. In this modern era, software and computer programs make the collection, archiving and retrieval of data easy. Such secondary data can be easily accessed and utilized optimally for primary researches, which are the main reasons for using secondary data in qualitative studies (Procter, 1993). Secondary data analysis is a method suggested mainly for student researchers due to the ease and cost effectiveness (Szabo and Strang, 1997). Moreover, the current research is not experienced in secondary research, mostly undertaken by experienced researchers due to the specific difficulties in conducting the secondary analysis (Thorne, 1994). It also has to be noted that the adaptation of the method does not necessarily preclude the chances of gathering primary data (Fig. 1). This may for instance, be needed for obtaining extra data or to pursue the findings arising from the primary analysis in a much controlled manner. There may also be a requirement for consulting the primary researcher or researchers for investigating the conditions of the original data collection and process. In this study, data is collected from secondary sources of information including human health and physical activity journals, conference papers and databases such as Emerald Insight, Science Direct and Sage Publications. Available secondary data may be entirely appropriate and adequate to draw conclusions, answer questions, or solve problems and it is cheaper to collect secondary data than it is to obtain primary data. With no bud-get and a lack of time, examination of secondary sources can yield a great deal more information than a primary data collection exercise. In other words, the time involved in searching secondary sources is much less than that needed to complete a primary data collection. Secondary sources of information can yield more accurate data than that obtained through primary research.

Analysis and Findings
In order to address the issues and to meet the aims of this study, below are the researches that were developed: • What are the researches related to physical fitness and performance and productivity of the organization? • These researches on physical fitness and performance and productivity have been carried out from 1969 to 2015. All the papers were retrieved from Google scholar and web of science. Table 1 demonstrates the authors, years and titles of these researches for further understanding • What are the factors, which illustrate that physical fitness, promotes higher company performance and productivity?
As stated in the article "the impact of a health promotion program on employee health risks and work productivity", productivity levels are increased by being part of a firm's fitness program (Mills et al., 2007). This survey comprised a variable group of 266 and a control group of 1242 respondents. The participants of the variable group were placed in a multi-part health promotion program that expresses a personalized health improvement plan, health risks, literature and lectures, which bring health improvement in-to focus. Based on the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), the health risk of individuals who have been enrolled in a multi-component health promotion program decreased by 0.45, their work performance increased by 0.79 and their monthly absenteeism decreased by 0.36. These findings indicate that applying a multi-component health promotion for the purpose of increasing the fitness level of participants could make distinct differences in productivity and health risks. As such, a fitness program has a positive effect on work performance and productivity.   Frew and Brunning 1988 The effect of employees' participation in an exercise program on increasing job satisfaction and productivity 4. Ganster and Schaubroek 1991 Work stress and employee health 5. Shephard 1992 Benefits of worksite fitness programmes 6. Lupinacci et al. 1993 Age and physical activity effects on reaction time and digit symbol substitution performance in cognitively active adults. 7. Kerr and Vos 1993 Employee fitness programmes, absenteeism and general wellbeing. In Work and Stress 8. Gomel et al. 1993 Worksite cardiovascular risk reduction: Randomised trial of health risk assessment, risk factor education, behavioral counselling and incentive strategies 9. Biddle 1995 Exercise and psychosocial health 10. Calfas et al. 1996 Promotion of physical activity and healthy diet through individual counselling at the workplace 11. Falkenberg 1987 Employee fitness programs: Their impact on the employee and the organization 12. Sallis et al. 1997 Assessment of Physical Activity 13. Veitch et al 1999 Physical activity promotion for male factory workers 14. Shephard 1999 Do worksite exercise and health program 15. Midha and Sullivan 1999 Conflicting rationales for promoting health in the workplace. 16. Neck and Cooper 2000 The fit executive: Exercise and diet guidelines for enhancing performance. 17. Jacobson and Aldana 2001 Relationship between frequency of aerobic activity and illness-related absenteeism in a large employee sample 18. Trost et al. 2002 Correlates of adults' participation in physical activity 19. Kahn et al. 2002 The effectiveness of interventions to increase physical activity 20. Wattles and Harris 1997 The relationship between fitness levels and employee's perceived productivity job satisfaction and absenteeism. 21. Pronk et al. 2004 The association between work performance and physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness and obesity. 22. Marshall 2004 The effectiveness of workplace physical activity interventions from 1997 23. Katzmarzyk and Janssen 2004 Estimated the direct and the indirect economic costs of physical inactivity and obesity Canad 24. Burton et al. 2005 The association of health status, worksite fitness center participation and two measures of productivity. 25. Van den Heuvel et al. 2005 Effect of sporting activity on absenteeism in a working population. 26. Ackland et al. 2005 Workplace Health and Physical Activity Program 27. Bates 2006 Recreational Program and Its Association with Job Satisfaction 28. Proper et al. 2003 Dose response relation between physical activity and sick leave 29. Engbers et al. 2005 workplace environmental intervention to promote physical activity and a healthy diet 30. Mills et al. 2007 The impact of a health promotion program on Employee Health Risks and Work Productivity 31. Hlobil et al. 2007 Effectiveness and economic impact of worksite interventions to promote physical activity and healthy diet 32. Grzywacz et al. 2007 The Effects of Workplace Flexibility on Health Behaviors: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis 33. Lucove et al. 2007 Association between employee leisure-time physical activity and subsidized gym memberships 34. Obesity reduction and its possible consequences 40. Kumar et al. 2009 Operational impact of employee wellness programs a business case study 41. Bingham 2009 Minding Our Bodies, Physical Activity for Mental Health 42. Conn et al. 2009 Meta-Analysis of Workplace Physical Activity Interventions 43. Burke et al. 2010 Group goal setting in a physical activity context 44. Erickson et al. 2011 Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory 45. Bennie et al. 2011 Associations between social ecological factors and self-reported short physical activity breaks during work hours among desk-based employees 46. Greene 2011 Employee wellness proves its worth 47. Tamers et al. 2011 The association between worksite social support, diet, physical activity and body mass index 48. Crespo Pronk et al. (2004) examined the relationship between performance at work and physical activity together with two other elements recognized being related to physical fitness activities including obesity and cardio respiratory. Four variables including absenteeism, quality and quantity of performance at work and final performance were used to define work performance. The result of the 683 data collected from workers showed that physical activity had a positive effect on the quality and the overall performance at work. Moreover, a higher level of cardio respiratory fitness had a positive effect on the quantity of work performance and reduced applied effort to perform the work. Obesity was also found to be related to higher absenteeism (Pronk et al., 2004). As such, cardio respiratory fitness and physical activity are related to presentism while obesity has a relationship with absenteeism. The relation between fitness physical activity and absenteeism was confirmed by a study by Jacobson and Aldana (2001). The aim of their study was to compare the frequency of self-reported exercise with illness-related absenteeism. The results revealed a significant relation between weekly exercise days and annual absenteeism with lower exercise rates being associated with higher rates of annual absenteeism. The association was specifically significant between no exercise at all (0 days per week) and 1 day per week of exercise compared to a higher exercise frequency rate (Jacobson and Aldana, 2001). Moreover, it appeared that non-exercisers were more likely to be absent for more than 7 days when compared to those exercising at least once per week. In a research conducted in Netherlands, data regarding absenteeism due to sickness over four years was gathered from 1228 employees of 21 Dutch firms. They also utilized data from two large Dutch cross-sectional data bases. The study investigated the relationship between sick leave and physical activity (Proper et al., 2003) find out whether physical activity affected sickness absenteeism. The results of their study showed that moderate intensity physical activities are neither related to duration of sick leave nor its frequency (Proper et al., 2003).
According to Shephard (1999), fitness promotes job performance. Commercial real estate stock brokers who participated in an aerobics training program (walking and/or running three times a week, for 12 weeks) earned greater sales commissions during and after the training program than brokers who did not participate. Workers from a hospital equipment firm who participated in a similar aerobics training program (walking, running, swimming and bicycling four times a week, for 24 weeks), enjoyed greater productivity and job satisfaction than workers who did not participate in the fitness program. The result showed that participating in fitness programs creates greater sales and productivity and it causes job satisfaction among the workers. Among the variety of studies conducted by Bennie et al. (2011), a large cross-sectional study (n = 801) identified work environment as a key setting to promote breaks in sitting and found that employees meeting the daily physical activity recommendations reported taking more short breaks than those who did not meet the recommendations. The finding showed that employees who have daily physical activity, take less short breaks in comparison with those who did not do any physical activity. As a result, physical activity promotes breaks in sitting. In another study conducted by Grzywacz et al. (2007), cross-sectional and longitudinal health risk appraisal data were obtained from employees of a multinational company (n = 3193) and it was found that physical activity frequency was positively related to perceived flexibility of work hours in the cross-sectional analysis. The result showed that physical activity and work flexibility may contribute to positive lifestyle behaviors and may play an important role in effective workplace health promotion initiatives.
What are the studies from 1969 to 2015 on physical activity and company performance and productivity? Table 2 shows how many studies have been carried out on physical activity and company performance and productivity from 1969 to 2015 and denotes the purpose, findings and criteria fin these studies for understanding and comparing the findings.

Policy Recommendation
The policy recommendations that can be applied from this study are based on the analysis of Table 2. The policy recommendations for this research are shown in Table 3.

No. Author
Year Title Purpose Findings Cariteria 1. Mills et al. 2007 The impact of a health promotion The significance of physical findings indicate that applying a multi significance of program on Employee Health fitness towards productivity -component health promotion for the physical fitness Risks and Work Productivity and performance of the firm purpose of increasing the fitness productivity level of participators would make performance distinct differences in productivity and health risks. As such, fitness program has positive effect on work performance and productivity.
2. Burton et al. 2005 The association of health status, Comparing individuals who Those employees who enrolled in comparison between worksite fitness center officially registered and who the fitness center of the company employees who participation and two measures did not registered in a fitness had higher productivity compared to registered/do not of productivity.
center of the firm on the those who did not participate in the register in a fitness productivity in the workplace fitness program of the company center of the firm productivity 3. Frew and 1988 The effect of employees' The effect of aerobic The research on study showed that Aerobic program Brunnin participation in an exercise program for the sales of aerobic program has positive effect performance program on increasing job brokers who took part in or and increase sales in between brokers (increase sales) satisfaction and productivity throughout of this program who took part in this program. techniques for the economic programme showed that an increase productivity analysis of worksite fitness in productivity in the experimental performance and lifestyle programmes company and reduce absenteeism.
17. Wattles and 1997 The relationship between fitness The purpose of this study Studies showed that fitness has a Fitness Harris levels and employee's perceived was to examine the direct effect on the work performance productivity job satisfaction and relationship between various performance. productivity absenteeism.
components of health-related fitness and employees perceived productivity, job satisfaction and absenteeism. 18. Pelletier et al. 2004 The relationship between health Examined the relationship calculated that health program reduce Performance risk and work productivity between changes in various absenteeism, improve presenteeism productivity health risks and changes in and increase productivity. work productivity 19. Katzmarzyk Table 3. The policy recommendations from researchers and authors study Author/researcheres Yeares Recommendation for the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity Ackland et al. 2005 Organizations should document a corporate policy that relates specifically to employee health and physical activity and that the support of management will be essential to the success of such a policy. Pronk and Kottke 2009 policies that encourage or reward active commuting to work or the introduction of complete streets policies that ensure streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders. Phipps et al. 2010 Organizations interested in implementing workplace policies to increase opportunities for physical activity can benefit from understanding what personal, environmental and organizational factors may impact employee interest and willingness to participate in physical activity Lucove et al. 2007 Introducing a workplace policy to provide employees with subsidized fitness counseling or gym/recreation memberships may be an effective way to increase and support employee physical activity and reduce barriers to physical activity such as cost. Crespo et al. 2011 The more environmental and policy factors present in a workplace, the more total and recreational physical activity was reported by employees both at work and outside of work.

Results and Discussion
As mentioned above, this study focused on three objectives. Two objectives are discussed and concluded as follows: To illustrate the effects of physical fitness on company performance and productivity. The importance of physical fitness, physical fitness at work, company's performance and productivity was discussed in the literature review. According to the findings, five factors demonstrate the effect of physical fitness on company performance and productivity. The factors include job satisfaction and commitment; cognition and memory; self-confidence/selfefficacy; decreased weight/increased physical activity level; and psychosocial well-being and stress. Table 4 shows the results of the findings from the literature review.
There are five factors show the effect of physical fitness on company performance and productivity as discussed in objective one.

Job Satisfaction/Commitment
All of the reviews which have been done systematically demonstrate that the initiatives of health promotion in the workplace attempt to improve fitness and physical activity which might result in more employee commitment and finally improve job satisfaction (Barr-Anderson et al., 2011). Based on the achieved outcomes, implementing both activities of physical fitness and health programs will improve work context in many different ways such as increasing job satisfaction, more employee commitment and less job stress of employees (Ackland et al., 2005).

Cognition and Memory
One of the current cross-sectional researches demonstrates that there is a relationship between being active physically and improvement in both cognitive and psychological factors. Literature review revealed that generally, more physical activity and physical fitness will decrease the chances of cognitive impairments from occurring (Erickson and Kramer, 2009). In addition, short bouts of physical activity practices during work increased accuracy and the speed of data entry (Barr- Anderson et al. 2011). Some studies revealed that even physical activities in moderate levels can minimize cognitive declines and could be used as a method of treatment for reversing the already existing cognitive deficits in older adults as well (Hertzog et al., 2009).

Self-Confidence/Self-Efficacy
The systematic literature review demonstrated that initiatives of physical activities at the workplace c might increase self-confidence among employees (Anderson et al., 2009). Besides, other systematic studies showed that participation of employees in health initiatives at the workplace could establish social capital by developing a higher cohesion sense as well as a collective self-efficacy of staffs (Kahn et al., 2002). The concept of social capital includes the processes among people that build norms, networks and trust and facilitates cooperation with mutual benefits (WHO, 1998). Therefore, more physical activity and higher fitness levels can enhance the selfconfidence of employees that can finally result in a unified work culture.

Decreased Weight/Increased Physical Activity Level
Based on previously conducted studies, initiatives of health promotion at the workplace attempt to increase nutrition and physical activity, also, it was revealed that fitness could decrease body weight and body fat of employees effectively (van Dongen et al., 2011). In addition, Anderson et al. (2009) showed that because of health promotion programs at the workplace, some modest weight loss has been reported as well with the objective of improving physical activity and nutrition. The other review identified that overall, physical activity could be increased by workplace intervention among all the participants in all the relevant investigations. In such studies, physical activity was evaluated and it was found that there are modest improvements in the level of physical fitness activity (Barr- Anderson et al., 2011).

Psychosocial Well-Being and Stress
Literature review demonstrated that 27% of individuals who have depression have serious issues in both the home and work life and within 3 months, they will lose an average of 4.8 working days and suffer 11.5 reduced productivity days (CDC, 2011). Some studies revealed that physical activity is related to a minimized risk of developing clinical depression (Bingham, 2009). Such conclusions are supported by a review in 2007, which revealed that exercise protects people against depression and it is an adjunctive and effective intervention to treat depression from mild to moderate levels (Donaghy, 2007).
To investigate the importance of physical fitness to company performance and productivity Based on previous studies, the necessity of physical fitness to productivity and company performance can be investigated based on increased job performance and productivity, return on investment/cost effectiveness, decrease in presentism/absenteeism, sick leave, turnover, compensation of workers and disability.

Productivity and Job Performance
It was concluded that work performance could increase as a result of increased fitness and physical activity after short bouts of physical activity were introduced within the work context. In addition it was revealed that work ability could be improved if we consider some exercise breaks and as a result significant improvements could be observed in both work productivity and cognitive performance. It can be achieved if we introduce physical activity as a daily routine at the workplace (Barr- Anderson et al., 2011). Hutchinson and Wilson (2011) conducted a meta-analysis and they concluded that the workplace could be a suitable setting to initiate modest modifications in fitness and physical activity of employees. Thus, improved health conditions and successful interventions of physical activity might result in improved productivity.

Turnover, Disability, Worker's Compensation and Sick Leave
Other advantages of improved physical fitness activities of employees are decreased obesity, less compensation cost of workers, sick leave, associated costs and short run disability rates (Ackland et al., 2005). One of the recent studies revealed that initiatives of health promotion at the workplace to improve physical activity might result in more financial advantages for organizations by means of turnover reduction (van Dongen et al., 2011). Moreover, Christie et al. (2010) explained that obesity could predict sick leave in the long term so less obesity by means of more physical activity can minimize sick leave. Pronk and Kottke (2009) stated that vigorous physical activity positively impacts sick leave. Besides Hutchinson and Wilson (2011) mentioned that improved health of employees leads to successful interventions of physical activity and it can finally results in decreased sick leave rates.

Cost Effectiveness/Return on Investment
When we consider costs of sick leave, absenteeism, injuries, disability and health care, it is obvious that physical inactivity as well as it influence on obesity of employees can be a critical driver of costs in the work context (Anderson et al., 2009). One of the mixedmethod researches demonstrated that implementing physical activity, workplace health and fitness initiatives has many economic benefits for the organization such as cost improvements to benefit ratio (Ackland et al., 2005). Another research demonstrated that there is $1.59 USD for each single invested dollar in physical activity programs in workplace and cost effectiveness in three separate studies varied from $1.44 to $4.16 USD, for each pound of body weight loss (Anderson et al., 2009).

Absenteeism and Presentism
Presentism concept refers to being present at work regardless of weak health level and thus performing below par (Brown et al., 2011). It is considered a new concept, which tries to quantify how current health conditions of employees can limit their work performance and it has a negative impact on organizational productivity as well (Ackland et al., 2005). One of the current investigations demonstrated that losses for presentism in workplace were from 1.9 to 5.1 times higher than the incurred costs from absenteeism and the fact that related costs to presentism were more than those direct costs of health in many cases because of the decline in productivity (Brown et al., 2011). In addition, positive associations in literature revealed that initiatives of physical activity in workplace could be a valid tool to help minimize both presentism and absenteeism.

Some Intangible Advantages
Comprehensive study of previous investigations demonstrated that implementing physical activity initiatives and workplace health programs could lead to improved outcomes of human resource and in developing a positive corporate image. Such results can empower total performance in the workplace such as improved motivation, more loyalty and enhanced employee morale, better recruitment, good working atmosphere, improved teamwork and communication and finally retention of qualified employees. In general, relevant studies explain that staffs can benefit in different ways by creating opportunities for activities of physical fitness at the workplace (Ackland et al., 2005).

Conclusion
Achieved outcomes from the reviews revealed that physical activity levels could be positively impacted by fitness and productivity programs at the workplace. Moreover, this research review showed that, there is a direct relationship between work productivity and fitness. Some researchers measured improved job satisfaction and productivity through enrollment in exercise program by employees. Brokers of commercial real estate stock who participated in an aerobics program for a total of 12 weeks achieved higher sales levels compared to the non-participating brokers after or during the 12 weeks of aerobic programs. Moreover, Research showed that, employees who participated in physical activity programs have more self-confidence and concentration in their job in comparison to other employees. Workers are under pressure in the workplace and physical activity can reduce stress and depression among them. According to researches, physical activity in the workplace increases employees' health and efficiency and reduces the cost of treating employees. Introducing a workplace policy to provide employees with subsidized fitness counseling or gym/recreation memberships may be an effective way to increase and support employee physical activity and to reduce barriers to physical activity such as cost.

Author's Contributions
Maryam Etemadi: Led the study, collected the data and did all the analysis. He also produced the manuscript in its original form and revised it into its final form.
Kamyar Shameli and Norihan Abu Hassan: Participated in research design.
Nurul Bahiyah Binti Ahmad Khairudin and Hirofumi Hara: Reviewed the draft manuscript and provided suggestions to improve it.
Kamyar Shameli and Zuriati Zakaria: Reviewed the draft manuscript. In charge of publication correspondence.

Ethics
This article is original and contains unpublished materials. The corresponding author confirms that all of the other authors have read and approved the manuscript and no ethical issues involved.