Encouraging and Incentivizing Walking Programs for Employees, with Milica McDowell

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Milica McDowell about encouraging and incentivizing walking programs for employees. Dr. Milica McDowell is a dynamic healthcare leader and educator with over 20 years of clinical, entrepreneurial, and academic expertise in physical therapy and e-learning innovation. Currently serving as Associate Vice President of Education at U. S. Physical Therapy, she spearheads strategic partnerships with professional PT and OT schools and drives student engagement across the organization's national platforms while supporting over 140 partner brands. Previously, Dr. McDowell led Physitrack's global e-learning division, Physicourses, where she oversaw a multidisciplinary team and collaborated with prestigious institutions including Gray Institute, Evidence in Motion, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. In this capacity, she launched evidence-based professional education programs for medical and wellness practitioners worldwide. Her career spans diverse leadership roles across academia and entrepreneurship. As Adjunct Faculty at Montana State University, she mentored students in human performance. She has also held leadership positions in startups across orthopedics, fitness, biomechanics analytics, and medical equipment sectors. Her entrepreneurial success includes two M&A exits, with two additional exits in future planning. Dr. McDowell holds a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) from Idaho State University, where she researched risk factors for non-contact knee injuries in young athletes, and an MSPT from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She is scheduled to begin her MBA at USC's Marshall School of Business in fall 2025. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts. We're your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Melissa McDowell, welcome to the conversation today.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Good morning, John. Thanks for having me.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  It is a real pleasure to be with you. You're joining us from Montana. I'm south of Salt Lake City in Utah. And today, we're going to be talking about encouraging and incentivizing walking programs for our employees and in the workplace generally. And it's a really fun topic. It's so practical, and it's just an easy way for us to encourage and really up the ante when it comes to workplace wellness and overall wellness from both a physical and mental standpoint. As we get started, I wanted to share Melissa's bio with everybody. Dr. Melissa McDowell is a dynamic healthcare leader and educator with over 20 years of clinical, entrepreneurial, and academic expertise in physical therapy

• 1:21Speaker 00

  and e-learning innovation. Currently serving as Associate Vice President of Education at US Physical Therapy, she spearheads strategic partnerships with professional PT and OT schools and drives student engagement across the organization's national platforms while supporting over 140 partner brands. Previously, Dr. McDowell led Physitrack's Global eLearning Division. In her previous capacity, she launched evidence-based professional education programs for medical and wellness practitioners worldwide. I could go on. There's so many really cool things about your background. You have a really unique background. I'm going to pause there. Anything you would like to highlight before we just dive on into the conversation?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I've always been really passionate about education and helping people gain access to science-backed knowledge. So there's so much misinformation out there. Out there. Um, one of the key misinformation related to walking, I'm not going to give it away yet. But is the 10,000 steps a day being the healthy marker for success? So we'll, we'll dive into that in a minute. I just want to tease that. Um, my background as well.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  I've read something about that. I watched a video about it once too. And so I'm curious to see if that's at all accurate.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  So we'll, we'll get into that in just a minute. Yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  For sure. I'm the child of two teachers. Um, I was a university professor for nine years. I just really love sharing accurate information and helping people learn how to take better care of themselves, how to take better care of themselves in the workplace, how to support their friends and family. Um, and so I'm very excited for this conversation today because walking is the 21st century's most under prescribed medicine. It is a radical form of self-care. And if you are in leadership at your organization, it is something you can give your teams permission to do. I'm really excited about the ability for us to unpack all the knowledge around the health benefits of walking from a mental health, a performance and a physical health standpoint. So yeah, really pumped to be here today. Thanks for having me.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Awesome. Awesome. Well, and, and maybe we can start with what you just said. It's, it's such a great way, you know, to unlock all of these things. And it's, it's largely untapped and everyone, you know, knows, you know, have a pedometer, whether it's your phone or you have like the ring or the watch or, or whatever. There's all these different ways we can do it and the 10,000 steps. Um, this wasn't necessarily a thing in the past, right? And why was that? You know, in, in previous generations and previous centuries, you know, nobody, um, you know, thought about walking as a prescription or walking as something you had to even pay attention to at all.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  You know, it was something that was built into daily life. Um, ancestors walked between 12 and 15,000 steps a day in non-supportive shoes, right? In shoes, if we could call them shoes at the time, that were simply designed for protection from harm. And we have really fallen away from the need to use walking as a form of transportation, as a form to engage with our community. The industrial revolution did that for us. Cars, horses, trains, planes. Automobiles definitely took a took a dent into most individuals' daily walking step counts. And then we saw an all time low be created after the pandemic. When many people shifted to working from home, you didn't have to walk to the train to commute to the office. You didn't have to go out to lunch if you work at an office.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Every your office was, you know, within two thousand steps of what you were. You were sitting in front of your computer at home at your dining room table. So we have definitely seen that decline. It's sort of draining down the bottom of the funnel. And the message that we're trying to share right now is really designed to counteract that.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I can say, I mean, just anecdotally, personally, pandemic wise, I I've always been. You know, I walk my dogs twice a day, you know, I I've been a university professor. I'm on a big, huge campus, I'm walking from meeting to meeting, I'm in classroom, I'm walking around. Like, I've always been a twelve to fifteen thousand step person a day, just without trying, you know? Like, that's that's just how I've been until the pandemic. And then and then all of a sudden, it dropped, you know, like it dropped to like five to seven thousand steps. And then all of a sudden, I had to really think about it for the first time forever. And and that was still with me walking my dogs, you know, twice a day.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  And all of a sudden, you know, I was hearing about other people like struggling to get two thousand, three thousand steps. And

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  It it's just, yes, absolutely. You know, it's it's really nice when it's just built into our natural like flow of our day. And when it's not, then then all of a sudden, it becomes something you have to really think about. So now we have walking desks, you know, like where you have the little treadmill. And I have one like right under me right now. I have I have a walking desk, so I can raise my desk. I have a little treadmill under it, I can make sure I'm getting steps in during the day, you know? So we have like things like that. We have all, we have things like walking meetings and and all these things that have become all the rage. To to try to just reintroduce

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  You know, the these just just the health benefits of just moving and not being sedated all the time.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  So you hit on a couple of important things with what you just said, that draining down. From the funnel to ending up at two thousand to three thousand steps a day. I'm often asked, what's the absolute minimum? Cause it's important to know sort of the the guardrails, I think, in these types of conversations. The absolute minimum steps per day should be, let's see, let me rephrase that. The the worst case scenario, the basement is if you are walking less than twenty five hundred. So we know that if individuals walk less than twenty five hundred, they are at risk for a host of physical and mental health disorders and progression to disease, early death. The data is rock solid.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  We know that if we take someone who's at that twenty five hundred and raise them five hundred steps to three thousand, we reduce their risk of all cause mortality, which means dying from anything by seven percent. If we take someone who's at the basement of twenty five hundred and bring them up to thirty five hundred a day, so adding a thousand, you reduce their risk of all cause mortality by fifteen percent. And those statistics are from multi-center systematic review, hundreds of thousands of patients, long-term studies. So we tend to say that basement is thirty five hundred. If you're below thirty five hundred, we're worried. If you're below twenty five hundred, red flags are everywhere. You you need to get in touch with your medical professionals and create a program to get up to twenty five hundred.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  The opposite end of the guardrail, however, you kind of hit on. So it sounds like you are someone who gets a huge step count. And many individuals do, right? And the overarching, if you ask a man on the street or a woman on the street, how many steps a day do you need to take to be healthy? That answer is always what, John?

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Uh, ten thousand, yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like ten thousand, it's like apple pie.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  The right answer to the question, right? And what's interesting about ten thousand is ten thousand has never been a science-backed metric. Ten thousand steps per day is leftover from a nineteen sixties Japanese pedometer marketing campaign. And it was following the Tokyo Olympics, pedometers were all the rage, being active was all the rage. And at the time, it was called a manko, manpo kay is actually the Japanese term for the the walking meter. The ticker on that walking meter, they were manual at the time where every time your body rocked, it like took a clicker step.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  It only went up to ten thousand. And so that's where that ten thousand steps a day comes from.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Okay, so I'm, I'm, I'm really happy to have this conversation with you because I've read that and I've, I've seen a video about that and I was like, is that real?

• 8:59Speaker 01

  It's a hundred percent as true as I say here.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  It seems so fake.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  That's the science, that's the story. So when we say the basement, you know, the, the worst case basement is twenty five hundred, we really like to get you to thirty five hundred. Oh, that's still not walking a mu- much. And if that, if that upper ceiling is not ten, ten K, what is that upper ceiling? When we have individuals who are shooting for ten thousand, twelve thousand, fifteen thousand, it becomes this conversation of a rate of diminishing returns. And when I look at that, I'm a clinician, right? I'm a physiotherapist, I'm a trainer, I'm an exercise physiologist, my, my role in life is encouraging other people to move. But when we hit a rate of diminishing return, I like to say, you can have that time back to do something else, right?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  We look at ACSM's recommendations for adults, a hundred and fifty minutes of moderate activity per day, divide by seven, right? You're looking at thirty minutes of moderate activity per day, but that's just our cardiovascular activity. If you look deeper into the recommendations, twice a week, we should be doing strength training. So if you're someone who's way exceeding that ten K number, you could back off that and use that time for some strength training in order to stimulate bone, muscle, all of the things we get from strength training. So you want to know the top end, the top end number that we should be striving for?

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so if you are, these are all science-backed conversations. If you are under sixty, generally speaking, eighty five hundred is a great number. If you are over sixty, generally speaking, seventy five hundred is a great number. That's for general all, all-cause mortality. And when we say all-cause mortality, that's dying from all our typical, you know, things that kill Americans in particular, cardiovascular disease, strokes, all those kinds of things, right? There's really interesting data, however, related to dementia progression. And the dementia progression data is very fascinating. And it parallels this conversation of like thirty five hundred to eighty five hundred, give or take. The dementia conversation is if you have, you know,

• 10:59Speaker 01

  concerns about dementia, if there's family history, you know, those sorts of things, if you have other cognitive challenges or a history of mental health disorders. If you can walk thirty eight hundred consistently, it reduces your risk of developing dementia by twenty five percent. If you walk ninety eight hundred consistently, which is pretty close to ten K and a pretty big bite, it's a big time commitment. The data shows us that can reduce your risk of developing dementia nearly fifty percent. So the thirty eight hundred and ninety eight hundred window is a critical window when we think of dementia risk.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  That's that's incredible. And you know, as I age, I actually just had a birthday yesterday. So I'm forty seven years. Forty seven years old. Thank you. Um, you know, and as I age, you know, everyone, you know, has the little aches and and you have these various things. I'm I'm pretty healthy, actually. But, you know, I I, you know, I I worry like anyone else, like, what what's it gonna be like? I want to age and be healthy as I age. And one of the biggest fears I have is dementia, right? I I want I want to be healthy as I age and I want to remain, you know, mentally there and and and it terrifies me, you know, to to have dementia. So that's incredible. Like, you know, one of the greatest ways to battle. Um, yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  And I think when we when we frame this in a business context, right? So if you're listening to this podcast today and you're someone in leadership in an organization, what does this mean to you, right? You're not gonna like send out a PDF with a list of like, hey, team, let's make sure you're walking between thirty eight hundred and ninety eight hundred so you don't get dementia. Um, I think really where business leaders can use this information is is this way. Give your teams permission to walk. Allow them to schedule a walk and talk meeting if they're talking about something that isn't confidential. Allow them to have a standing desk. Allow them to have a walking pad. Better yet, purchase part of it for them. Provide some, you know, incentive for individuals to remember walking is a health intervention. It can affect our public health globally.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  And so with that, I think it's important to, if you're someone who's in leadership, to think about ways, A, you can model this behavior. When are you getting a fair amount of steps per day? Are you someone who is modeling healthy lifestyle? And then encourage your teams either through some sort of, you know, extrinsic motivation. Maybe there's a leaderboard, maybe there's a luncheon, maybe there's some sort of, you know, gamification. Or by educating them, which drives intrinsic motivation. And, and when you talk about really trying to prepare people to be successful in their workplaces, whether it's a brick and mortar place they have to go every day, whether they're teams who work remote. The education and the intrinsic motivation side of this is key for adoption and key for people internalizing,

• 13:44Speaker 01

  what can it do for me? Why do I want to, why do I want to consider participating in this activity?

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and I love, I love the, the both sides of it, you know, because certainly carrot and stick, you know, that, that can drive behavior to a certain extent. And maybe, maybe that's the nudge, you know, to get someone going when, when they're not, you know, so inclined to, to make a change. But I would hope that you could transfer any extrinsic motivator into an intrinsic motivator and, and really then drive a habit that becomes like a lifestyle choice, right? That just becomes a lifelong, you know, thing for that individual. That's, that's really going to be what makes the big difference for people. And, and I like how you also frame it as like giving permission, make it, systematize it.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Like make it something that just becomes part of the workplace, becomes part of office culture.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  I still remember it, it was a long time ago before standing desks became pretty normal. Uh, I remember the first time I asked, um, a manager for a standing desk. I'm like, can I get this? And they're like, why? And I'm like, like, do you, like, is this, is this like a, an accommodation? Like, do we need to go to the accommodation office? If fill out paperwork and stuff, I'm like, well, no, it's just, it's just better for you. And like, it's better to be standing up and, you know, I gave them all these reasons and they're like, we're, you know, I don't know, because if we Give one to you without any special reason, like then other people are gonna want one and like it was it was this whole back and forth and eventually I talked them into it and they gave me a standing desk. This was like fifteen years ago or something.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  You're the leading edge. I love this.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  You know, and and and then I got like the first thing I got was like a little mini elliptical underneath and then I got like a little, you know, a mini treadmill. Anyways, like I just remember having to really talk people into that and now it's much more common. Now, now you you see it all the time. And I think it is becoming more pervasive and and more just cultural, right? But the the the the walking meetings, I love that. I love it when people will take walking meetings. I hate sitting behind my desk on Zoom calls all day.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  And for the most part, there's no reason to, you know, if people are in the office together, you know, sometimes, yeah, be in a room together, use the whiteboard, whatever. But a lot, I mean, juices are flowing when you're walking around. Like, I'm so much more creative when I'm moving. Um, and when I'm just observing stuff around, like I tell people, I have like my greatest insights when I'm out walking my dogs, you know? And I don't think that's unique to me. I think most people tend to just think better when they're moving, you know?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  It does. It promotes mental clarity, reduces blood pressure, it improves your cognitive or your cerebral blood flow. It can, there's actually a concept called interrupted sitting. There's some really great studies that talk about. Even if you get up and do a five-minute micro walk or twenty to thirty squats. X number of times per day, that demonstrated improvement in mental performance, cognitive clarity, reductions in discomfort. And so there are really some strategies that managers can learn about and share. Interrupted sitting, micro walks, walk and talk meetings. If you take nothing else away from this conversation, those are the great things to throw into Google or ChatGPT and search about and learn about.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Additionally, I'm happy to be a resource to anyone who's listening. A great place to reach out to me is on Instagram. My Instagram is Dr. D R. Melissa McDowell D P T. And so my Melissa is spelled M I L I C A. You'll be able to track me down. But I love sharing that kind of information, chatting about programming opportunities, just ways that you can, as you mentioned, John, systemize this, give people permission, make sure that they understand the benefits. And then create some motivations for people to participate.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love it. I love it. Maybe the last thing I'll just mention in terms of like the systemat- the systematic approach to it. It, you know, I have two daughters. I I've, you know, teenagers and I have two daughters that work at In-N-Out. And I've been impressed with In-N-Out just in terms of like their focus on the physical health of their employees. Like they have mandated into policy, like I think it's like every twenty minutes. Like they have like literally like a little timer that goes off and every twenty minutes the they're supposed to like stop and like do like hand stretches and like do various like things to make sure that they're physically staying healthy, right?

• 18:16Speaker 00

  And I I'm just like, you maybe you're aware of this, you know, but like it's it's just so cool like that they they have these things built in. So that so that employees don't feel like they're, I don't know, that they're cheating or like they're they're not working hard or you know, because that becomes a pervasive kind of cultural thing like and people just feel like, oh, I can't take this break. I can't. I can't do this or that because then people are going to think I'm not committed or, you know, I want to get ahead or I'm ambitious or or whatever. And like, no, like it, you you're actually promoting good, healthy productivity. And you're going to get better outcomes when people are taking the walking breaks and and and resetting mentally and doing all those sorts of things. So we want to promote this as much as possible.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've done I've done some occupational health consulting over the years and I did some in a manufacturing facility that made widgets related to bullets and guns. I mean, I'm in Montana, so that's a big industry here. And I remember going to these warehouses and music would just come on randomly. I thought randomly initially. It was once an hour. And this huge like blast of horrible like nineties techno would come on. And everybody would hop up out of their stations and they would go through stretching a stretching routine. And the first couple of times it caught me off guard. And then as I started to work in that industry, I was like, oh, this is creating a culture again of permission of this is normal of we're all doing this together of high five, we just do our stretches. And we know that that

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Sort of social component is really valuable and and that's where I think with walking because it is something that is very inclusive. Um, most individuals are capable of walking, even individuals with assisted devices, prosthetics. If you have a coworker who's using a walker or wheelchair, they can certainly come with you when you go on a walk. I think it is incredibly inclusive. And when you start building some culture around that inclusivity, around it being normal, around it being something that we look forward to, that really has a lot of power. And I I would challenge the leaders on these calls to think about, are you modeling this type of behavior? And are you creating space for individuals to participate?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  So they have the knowledge of what the benefits are, they have the ability to put it into their schedule. And then you either have some sort of, you know, reward system, celebration, acknowledgement. I mean, we all know that that goes so far with people feeling connected um in their workplaces, whether remote or in person. So I think that that's an important takeaway from the conversation as well.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  I love it. Melissa, thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure. I know at the time I need to let you go, but before we wrap up, I just wanted to give you one last chance to share with the audience how they can connect with you.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Um, and and also share about your your upcoming book release, uh, and then give us the final word for today.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So I am so honored to have completed a book project this year with one of my uh very knowledgeable colleagues, best friends. So our book is called Walk. Walk is in pre-sale right now. It is being published by Hachette in the US, Penguin Random House in the UK and various other international translations. Uh, it is currently available on Amazon. So if you type in Walk and you type in my name, you will see the information about this book. The book's um goal is absolutely this, providing science-backed information that can help people turn the dial a tiny bit. Whether you're someone who is worried what shoes to wear, maybe you've had pain or an injury or a surgery, you don't know how to carve out the time.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  We've absolutely worked through all of those typical objections to introducing more walking into your life. We talk about walks with your coworkers. Your grandmother, your crabby teenage daughters, you can actually really change the mood. There's great science being like, please drag your teenager outside and go for a walk. So I have really enjoyed the process of working through writing a book and being able to share this message in a wider platform. So if you're looking to connect with me, again, you can reach me on Instagram, Dr. Melissa McDowell DPT. I'm also on LinkedIn, Dr. Melissa McDowell. My website is melissamcdowell.com and the book is available. Anywhere you buy books, Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you name it. So that's, that's what I've been up to for the last year and a half.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Awesome. Thank you, Melissa. It's been a pleasure. I encourage the audience to reach out, get connected, find out more about what Melissa can do for you. Check out the book. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe and you can find meaning and purpose at work each and every day. And I hope you all have a great week.